Adaptive and interchangeable neural networks

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems that allow neural network systems to maintain or increase operational accuracy while being able to operate in various settings. A set of training data is collected over each of at least two different settings. Each setting has a set of characteristics. Examples of setting characteristic types can be time, geographical location, and/or weather condition. Each set of training data is used to train a neural network resulting in a set of coefficients. For each setting, the setting characteristics are associated with the corresponding neural network having the resulting coefficients and neural network structure. A neural network, having the coefficients and neural network structure resulted after training using the training data collected over a setting, would yield optimal results when operated in/under the setting. A database management system can store information relating to, for example, the setting characteristics, neural network coefficients, and/or neural network structures.

INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE TO ANY PRIORITY APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No.16/734,074, filed on Jan. 3, 2020, which claims the benefit of U.S.Provisional Application No. 62/940,762, filed on Nov. 26, 2019, andtitled “ADAPTIVE AND INTERCHANGEABLE NEURAL NETWORKS.” The entiredisclosure of the above-identified applications is hereby made part ofthis specification as if set forth fully herein and incorporated byreference for all purposes, for all that it contains.

Any and all applications for which a foreign or domestic priority claimis identified in the Application Data Sheet as filed with the presentapplication are hereby incorporated by reference under 37 CFR 1.57.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Technical Field

This invention relates to self-adapting/self-adjusting neural networksystem. Observing a different environment/condition/situation underwhich the neural network system finds itself operating from a previouslyobserved environment/condition/situation, the system automaticallyreconfigures one or more neural networks—reconfiguring may include usinga different set of coefficients for a neural network running within theneural network system.

Description of the Related Art

As illustrated in FIG. 1, a conventional Neural Network (NN) 101receives an input (a single vector, in this example) at an input layer102, and transforms it through a series of one or more hidden layers103. Each hidden layer includes a set of “neurons” or “nodes,” whereeach neuron is connected to all neurons in the previous layer (e.g., theinput layer or another hidden layer), and where neurons in a singlelayer function completely independently and do not share anyconnections. The last fully-connected layer is called the “output layer”105, where each of the neurons in the output layer can provide a portionof the output information (or signal), and in classificationapplications the output layer information (or setting(s)) represents theclass scores (e.g., the score of the input(s) being classified). Basedon the class scores, an output of the neural network can be determinedas the class having the highest score. In other neural networks, theoutput may consist of an indication of the class having the highestscore as the one selected and a confidence level of the selected classfor given input data being the correct one based on the relative scoreswith other classes. This confidence level is referred to as an outputconfidence level, herein.

As illustrated in FIG. 2, a “convolutional” Neural Network 201 can take3D images as input, for instance. In particular, unlike the neuralnetwork described in connection with FIG. 1, the layers of aconvolutional neural network have neurons arranged in 3 dimensions:width, height, depth. Note that the word depth here refers to the thirddimension of an activation volume, not to the depth of a full neuralnetwork, which can refer to the total number of layers in a network. Theneurons in a layer can be configured to be connected to a small regionof the layer before it, instead of all of the neurons in afully-connected manner. The convolutional neural network reduces thefull image into a single vector of class scores 203, arranged along thedepth dimension.

Neural networks have been employed to operate in complex and widelyvarying settings (e.g., different environments, conditions, situations,and/or etc.). As such, ever increasing quantities of train data setshave been used to train prior art neural networks to operate in as manydifferent settings as possible. When the size of training data set isincreased to include training data samples from many different settings,a prior art neural network can begin to lose its accuracy and canencounter a catastrophic memory loss, which causes the neural network tocease to operate as it was originally designed and trained for.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Various aspects of the present invention includes inventive features andembodiments to allow neural network systems of the present invention tomaintain or increase operational accuracy in controlling a machine whilebeing able to operate in various, different settings. In particular, aset of training data is collected over each of at least two differentsettings (e.g., a setting can be an environment, a condition, asituation, or the like in/under which a machine is to operate). Eachsetting can have its own characteristics. In some embodiments, thesecharacteristics can be defined using a set of ranges of values. Examplesof types of characteristics for the settings can be time, geographicallocation, and/or weather condition, etc. Using the training data set, aneural network having a particular structure can be trained for a givensetting, which results in a set of coefficients for the particularneural network. For each setting, the characteristics for the settingare associated with the corresponding coefficients and/or thecorresponding neural network structure trained with the training dataset collected in/under the setting. Information relating to thecharacteristics, coefficients, and neural network structures for varioussettings can be stored in a database management system.

Operating in/under a setting, a neural network that has the coefficientsand neural network structure associated with a set of characteristicscorresponding to the setting, the neural network would yield optimalresults for which it is designed/trained. In operation, variouscharacteristics of the setting are monitored since the machine can moveinto or the environment/condition/situation may change to a new setting.That is, the setting may change from one setting to a new setting—theneural network coefficients and/or neural network structure (or theneural network executable module having the structure and/or thecoefficients) associated with the new setting can be retrieved from adatabase management system. A new neural network can then beinstantiated with those coefficients and may become operational, whilethe old neural network becomes inactive (e.g., becomes non-operationalor terminated). In other words, various embodiments of the presentinvention allow adaptively changing the neural network(s) based onchanging settings (e.g., changes in environment, condition and/orsituation).

First variations of preferred methods of controlling a machine include aprocess (or steps of), without requiring a particular order or sequence,storing at least two sets of neural network coefficients, each beingdifferent from the others with one or more characteristics of a setting,associating each of the at least two sets of neural network coefficientswith at least one set of one or more ranges of values, receiving firstdata from one or more input devices of the machine, selecting one fromthe at least two sets of neural network coefficients based on the firstdata and the at least one set of one or more ranges of values. Themethods of the various embodiments may also include the steps ofinstantiating a neural network with the selected one from the at leasttwo sets of neural network coefficients, and controlling an aspect ofthe machine using an output from the instantiated neural network. Asindicated above, the use of “step” herein when referring to a portion ofa process does not itself indicate any particular sequence or order ofthe process portions, unless otherwise indicated explicitly or asrequired by the context of the described process.

First variations of preferred methods of controlling a machine may alsoinclude, without requiring a particular order or sequence, the steps ofassociating a plurality among the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients with a second set of one or more ranges of values, and/orstoring information relating to a neural network structure associatedeach of the at least two sets of neural network coefficients. Themethods may further include the step of selecting one from the at leasttwo sets of neural network further comprises the step of matching thefirst data with one of the at least one set of one or more ranges ofvalues. The matching step can further comprises the steps of comparingthe first data with the at least one set of one or more ranges ofvalues; and identifying the selected one of the at least one set amongone or more ranges of values that has the first data fall within itsranges of values, wherein the neural network coefficients matched withthe selected one are generated by using training data set collectedwithin the corresponding particular setting.

Second variations of preferred methods of controlling a machine mayinclude the steps of, without requiring a particular order or sequence,storing at least two sets of neural network coefficients, each beingdifferent from the others with one or more characteristics of a setting,associating each of the at least two sets of neural network coefficientswith one or more characteristics of a setting, receiving first data fromone or more input devices of the machine, selecting one from the atleast two sets of neural network coefficients based on the first dataand the one or more characteristics of settings, instantiating a neuralnetwork with the selected one from the at least two sets of neuralnetwork coefficients, and controlling an aspect of the machine using anoutput from the instantiated neural network. Wherein, each of the one ormore characteristics of settings is defined with a range of values.

Second variations of preferred methods of controlling a machine may alsoinclude the steps of, without requiring a particular order or sequence,storing information relating to a neural network structure associatedeach of the at least two sets of neural network coefficients. The stepof selecting one from the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients further comprises the step of matching the first data withthe one or more characteristics of settings, which may further includethe steps of comparing the first data with the one or morecharacteristics of settings, wherein each of the one or morecharacteristics of settings is defined with a range of values, andidentifying the selected one of the one or more characteristics ofsettings that the first data fall within the ranges of values.

Various embodiments of preferred methods of controlling a machine mayfurther include, without requiring a particular order or sequence, thesteps of storing a set of one or more input range values associated eachof the at least two sets of neural network coefficients, comparing thefirst data with the one or more input range values associated with theselected one from the at least two sets of neural network coefficients,and selecting a new set among the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients if the first data is outside the input range values. Inother variation, the methods may include the steps of storing a set ofone or more output range values associated each of the at least two setsof neural network coefficients, comparing the output with the one ormore output range values associated with the selected one from the atleast two sets of neural network coefficients, and selecting a new setamong the at least two sets of neural network coefficients if the outputis outside the output range values.

First variations of preferred apparatuses of controlling a machine mayinclude a database management system stored with at least two sets ofneural network coefficients being different from each other, at leastone set of one or more ranges of values with one or more characteristicsof a setting, and each of the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients being associated with at least one set of one or moreranges of values; and means for controlling coupled to receive firstdata from one or more input devices of the machine, wherein the meansfor controlling includes means for selecting one from the at least twosets of neural network coefficients based on the first data and the atleast one set of one or more ranges of values, and means forinstantiating a neural network with the selected one from the at leasttwo sets of neural network coefficients, wherein the neural network isconfigured to generate an output being used to control an aspect of themachine.

Second variations of preferred apparatuses of controlling a machine mayinclude a database management system stored with at least two sets ofneural network coefficients being different from each other with one ormore characteristics of a setting, at least one set of one or moreranges of values, and each of the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients being associated with at least one set of one or moreranges of values, and a controlling device that is coupled to receivefirst data from one or more input devices of the machine, arranged toselect one from the at least two sets of neural network coefficientsbased on the first data and the at least one set of one or more rangesof values, and arranged to instantiate a neural network with theselected one from the at least two sets of neural network coefficients,wherein the neural network is configured to generate an output beingused to control an aspect of the machine.

In the first and second variations of preferred apparatuses, thedatabase management system may further store a plurality among the atleast two sets of neural network coefficients associated with a secondset of one or more ranges of values, and information relating to aneural network structure associated each of the at least two sets ofneural network coefficients. In these embodiments, the databasemanagement system can be configured to match the first data with one ofthe at least one set of one or more ranges of values, to compare thefirst data with the at least one set of one or more ranges of values,and to identify the selected one of the at least one set among one ormore ranges of values that has the first data fall within its ranges ofvalues.

Third variations of preferred apparatuses of controlling a machine mayinclude a database management system stored with at least two sets ofneural network coefficients being different from each other, at leastone setting having one or more characteristics with one or morecharacteristics of a setting, and each of the at least two sets ofneural network coefficients being associated with the at least onesetting having one or more characteristics, and a controlling devicethat is coupled to receive first data from one or more input devices ofthe machine, arranged to select one from the at least two sets of neuralnetwork coefficients based on the first data and at one least onesetting having one or more characteristics, and arranged to instantiatea neural network with the selected one from the at least two sets ofneural network coefficients, wherein the neural network is configured togenerate an output being used to control an aspect of the machine.

Fourth variations of preferred apparatuses of controlling a machine mayinclude a database management system stored with at least two sets ofneural network coefficients being different from each other with one ormore characteristics of a setting, at least one setting having one ormore characteristics, and each of the at least two sets of neuralnetwork coefficients being associated with the at least one settinghaving one or more characteristics, and means for, coupled to receivefirst data from one or more input devices of the machine, selecting onefrom the at least two sets of neural network coefficients based on thefirst data and at one least one setting having one or morecharacteristics, and instantiating a neural network with the selectedone from the at least two sets of neural network coefficients, whereinthe neural network is configured to generate an output being used tocontrol an aspect of the machine.

In the third and fourth variations of preferred apparatuses, thedatabase management system may further store each of at least onesetting having one or more characteristics is defined with a range ofvalues. The database management system also can be configured to matchthe first data with one of at least one setting having one or morecharacteristics, and may be further configured to compare the first datawith the at least one setting having one or more characteristics definedwith a range of values and to identify the selected one of the at leastone set among one or more ranges of values that has the first data fallwithin its ranges of values.

In variations of preferred apparatuses of controlling a machine, thedatabase management system can further store a set of one or more inputrange values associated each of the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients and the instantiated neural network with the selected onefrom the at least two sets of neural network coefficients, and theapparatuses can further include a first trigger event detector arrangedto compare the first data with the one or more input range valuesassociated with the selected one from the at least two sets of neuralnetwork coefficients and to send a signal to the controlling device toselect a new set among the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients if the first data is outside the input range values. Thedatabase management system can also store a set of one or more outputrange values associated each of the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients and the instantiated neural network with the selected onefrom the at least two sets of neural network coefficients, and furtherincludes a second trigger event detector arranged to compare the outputwith the one or more output range values associated with the selectedone from the at least two sets of neural network coefficients and tosend a signal to the controlling device to select a new set among the atleast two sets of neural network coefficients if the output is outsidethe output range values.

For the various preferred embodiments, the neural network structure canbe one of a convolutional neural network, a feed forward neural network,a neural Turing machine, Hopfield neural network, and Boltzmann machineneural network. In these embodiments, a setting can be one of atemperate urban region, a desert rural region, a forested mountainregion, and a coastal city and/or can be one of environment, condition,and situation in/under which the machine operates, and the informationrelating to the at least two sets of neural network coefficients isstored in a standardized format to allow access by electronic devicesmanufactured by different manufacturers or electronic devices belongingto different manufacturing entities. Also, the neural networkcoefficients matched with the selected one can be generated by usingtraining data set collected within the corresponding setting.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a prior art neural networkwith hidden layers;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating a prior art convolutionalneural network;

FIG. 3 is an illustration depicting a node on a nodal layer, the nodereceiving input from nodes from the previous nodal layer;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an example preferred embodimentof an automated machine with a coefficient DBMS;

FIG. 4a is a flow chart diagram illustrating steps performed by apreferred example embodiment of a setting change detector andcontroller;

FIG. 4b is a timing diagram illustrating steps performed by a preferredexample embodiment of a setting change detector and controller;

FIG. 4c is a timing diagram illustrating steps performed by a preferredexample embodiment of a setting change detector and controller that hasa predicting setting feature;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating an example preferred embodimentof a controller that can allow a plug-in architecture.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating various process steps for the systemlevel shown in FIG. 5;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating various process steps for the neuralnetwork shown in FIG. 5;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating various process steps for the PISAmodule shown in FIG. 5;

FIG. 9a is a diagram illustrating a two-dimensional decision space withtwo potential classification groupings;

FIG. 9b is a diagram illustration a two-dimensional decision space withmultiple boundary condition regions;

FIG. 10a is a diagram illustrating a one-dimensional decision space withtwo potential classification groupings;

FIG. 10b is a flow chart illustrating a set of steps in using boundaryconditions in a control system;

FIG. 11 is a block diagram illustrating an example preferred embodimentof an automated machine with a triggering event detector; and

FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating an example preferred embodimentof an automated machine with a triggering event detector with the TEDsignal from the SCDC.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF CERTAIN INVENTIVE ASPECTS

The detailed description of various exemplary embodiments below, inrelation to the drawings, is intended as a description of variousaspects of the various exemplary embodiments of the present inventionand is not intended to represent the only aspects in which the variousexemplary embodiments described herein may be practiced. The detaileddescription includes specific details for the purpose of providing athorough understanding of the various exemplary embodiments of thepresent invention. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in theart that some aspects of the various exemplary embodiments of thepresent invention may be practiced without these specific details. Insome instances, well-known structures and components are shown in blockdiagram form in order to avoid obscuring various examples of variousembodiments.

Although particular aspects various exemplary embodiments are describedherein, numerous variations, combinations and permutations of theseaspects fall within the scope of the disclosure. Although some benefitsand advantages of certain aspects are mentioned, the scope of thedisclosure is not intended to be limited to particular benefits, uses orobjectives.

I. Neural Networks

Some aspects of various exemplary embodiments are described by referringto and/or using neural network(s). Various structural elements of neuralnetwork include layers (input, output, and hidden layers), nodes (orcells) for each, and connections among the nodes. Each node is connectedto other nodes and has a nodal value (or a weight) and each connectioncan also have a weight. The initial nodal values and connections can berandom or uniform. A nodal value/weight can be negative, positive,small, large, or zero after a training session with training data set.The value of each of the connection is multiplied (or other mathematicaloperation) by its respective connection weight. The resulting values areall added together (or other mathematical operation). A bias (e.g.,nodal value) can also be added (or other mathematical operation). A biascan be a constant (often −1 or 1) or a variable. This resulting value isthe value of the node when activated. Another type of nodes areconvolutional nodes, which can be similar to aforementioned nodalfeatures, are typically connected to only a few nodes from a previouslayer, particularly adapted to decode spatial information inimages/speech data. Deconvolutional nodes are opposite to convolutionalnodes. That is, deconvolutional nodes tend to decode spatial informationby being locally connected to a next layer. Other types of nodes includepooling and interpolating nodes, mean and standard deviation nodes torepresent probability distributions, recurrent nodes (each withconnections other nodes and a memory to store the previous value ofitself), long short term memory (LSTM) nodes that may address rapidinformation loss occurring in recurrent nodes, and gated recurrent unitsnodes that are a variation of LSTM node by using two gates: update andreset.

A neural network can be a feedforward network that includes multi-levelhidden layers with each layer having one or more nodes. In someexemplary embodiments of the present invention, a neural network can bea recurrent neural network either forward moving only in time orbi-directional as including forward moving components and backwardmoving components. Some exemplary aspects of the present inventioncontemplate using a recursive neural network that can configure itselfadaptively with different number of layers with different number ofnodes for each layer depending on given training data. In someembodiments of the present invention, the recursive neural network is aconfiguration of a neural network created by applying the same set ofweights recursively over a structured input (producing a structuredprediction over variable-size input structures) or a scalar predictionon it by traversing a given structure in topological order.

In some aspects, various exemplary embodiments contemplate takingadvantage of the nonlinearity of a neural network, which may cause lossfunctions to become nonconvex. In other words, neural networks aretypically trained by using training data set on iterative,gradient-based optimizers that would drive the cost function to a verylow value. In some exemplary aspects of the present invention, whentraining data set can be preprocessed to develop characteristic by largelinear regression, support vector machines with gradient descent can beused to train a neural network.

For computing the gradient (e.g., in feed-forward neural networks), insome exemplary embodiments contemplate using backpropagation, whileanother method such as stochastic gradient descent can be used toperform learning using this gradient. In some aspects of the presentinvention, the backpropagation can also be applicable to other machinelearning tasks that involve computing other derivatives, e.g., part ofthe learning process, or to analyze the learned model.

In some exemplary embodiments, neural networks may undergoregularization (and, optionally, optimization for neural networktraining) during a training session using training data set. In someaspects of the present invention, regularization contemplates to bemodification to the neural network to reduce its generalization error.The optimization, in some exemplary embodiments, can use continuationmethods. This option can make optimization more efficient by selectinginitial points causing the local optimization efforts in well-behavedregions of training data set space. In another exemplary embodiment, theoptimization can use a stochastic curriculum, e.g., gradually increasingthe average proportion of the more difficult examples is graduallyincreased, whereas in a conventional training a random mix of easy anddifficult examples is presented to neural nets to be trained.

In some exemplary embodiments, supervised training or unsupervisedtraining (or combination thereof) can be employed to train a givenneural network. The unsupervised training allows a neural network todiscern the input distribution/pattern on its own. In some exemplaryembodiments of the unsupervised training, each layer of a neural networkcan be trained individually unsupervised, and then the entire network istrained to fine tune.

In some exemplary aspects of present invention, the input data aresampled so that the neural network can be more efficiently trained. Inthis example embodiment, sampling can be performed by using statisticalmethods to approximate the input distribution/pattern such as Gibbssampling. The Gibbs sampling is an example approach in building a Markovchain, which is an example method to perform Monte Carlo estimates.

The above described various types of nodes are used in a number ofdifferent example neural network structures, such as the feedforwardneural network described in connection with FIG. 1. Other example neuralnetwork structures include: a Hopfield network, a network where everyneuron is connected to every other neuron; a Boltzmann machines, whichis similar to the Hopfield network but with some nodes used asinput/output nodes and others remain hidden nodes; and a RestrictedBoltzmann machine. These three example neural network structures caninclude Markov chains used as preprocessors.

Another example set of neural network structures include deepconvolutional neural networks and deconvolutional networks, which usethe convolutional and deconvolutional nodes described above. Theconvolutional/deconvolutional networks can be combined with feedforwardneural networks. For instance, generative adversarial networks can beformed by two different neural networks such as a combination of afeedforward neural network and convolutional neural network, with onetrained to generate content related information (e.g., featureextraction) from input data and the other trained to use the contentrelated information to determine the content (e.g., identifying objectsin images).

Another example group of neural network structures includes: recurrentneural networks that use the recurrent nodes described above, LSTM usethe aforementioned LSTM nodes, gated recurrent units having an updategate instead of other gate of LSTM, neural Turing machines that havememories separated from nodes, bidirectional recurrent neural networks,and echo state networks having random connections between recurrentnodes.

Yet another example group of neural network structures includes: deepresidual networks which is a deep feedforward neural networks with extraconnections passing input from one layer to a later layer (often 2 to 5layers) as well as the next layer, extreme learning machines that is afeedforward neural network with random connections but not recurrent orspiking. In some implementations the deep feedforward neural network hasmore than five layers. Regarding a spiking neural network, liquid statemachines are similar to extreme learning machines with spiking nodes,such as replacing sigmoid activations with threshold functions and eachnode has a memory capable of accumulating.

Other example structures include support vector machines that findsoptimal solutions for classification problems, self-organizing neuralnetworks such as Kohonen neural networks. Another example set of neuralnetwork structures includes: autoencoders configured to automaticallyencode information, sparse autoencoders that encode information in morespace, variational autoencoders are pre-injected with an approximatedprobability distribution of the input training samples, denoisingautoencoders that train with the input data with noise, and deep beliefnetworks are stacked structures of autoencoders. The deep beliefnetworks have been shown to be effectively trainable stack by stack.

In some embodiments, the neural network may include a neural networkthat has a class of deep, feed-forward artificial neural networks thatuse a variation of multilayer perceptrons designed to require minimalpreprocessing and may also use hidden layers that are convolutionallayers (or CNN), pooling layers, fully/partially connected layers andnormalization layers. Some embodiments can be referred to as shiftinvariant or space invariant artificial neural networks (SIANN), basedon their shared-weights architecture and translation invariancecharacteristics. A neural network may self-train (e.g., Alphago Zero)such as by using re-enforcement learning. Variations on this embodimentinclude the deep Q-network (DQN) which is a type of deep learning modelthat combines a deep CNN with Q-learning, a form of reinforcementlearning. Unlike earlier reinforcement learning agents, DQNs can learndirectly from high-dimensional sensory inputs. Variation on thisembodiment include convolutional deep belief networks (CDBN) which havestructure very similar to the CNN and are trained similarly to deepbelief networks. These extensions exploit the 2D structure of images,like CNNs do, and make use of pre-training like deep belief networks.Further variations on this embodiment include time delay neural networks(TDNN) which allow timed signals (e.g. speech) to be processedtime-invariantly, analogous to the translation invariance offered byCNNs. The tiling of neuron outputs can cover timed stages. It should benoted that the above-mentioned neural networks can be trained usingtraining data sets using the unsupervised learning, the supervisedlearning, or the reinforcement learning steps.

2. Various Types of Nodal Operations

At each node of the input layer, a set of input is received. For nodeson hidden layers, outputs are received from nodes located on a previousnodal layer (or output from nodes from various nodal layers based onparticular neural network configurations) as inputs. Each node performsan operation or operations on the received set of input. FIG. 3illustrates nodal operations using an example of nodal coefficients (ornodal weights—nodal weights and nodal coefficients can be usedinterchangeably in the context of various embodiments of the presentinvention, and they can be shortened to coefficients or weights) for anode in a feed-forward neural network. In this particular example, thereare “n” number of coefficients per a node 321 including a biascoefficient 323. The output 325, a_(out), is an output of a functionapplied to the sum 329 (Σ) of (i) a bias value (1*b) and (ii) eachoutput from the previous layer of nodes (a₁, a₂, . . . , a_(N) in FIG.3) with each multiplied by a certain weight (W₁, W₂, . . . , W_(N) inFIG. 3) that can be a negative/positive number or zero. The function 327(e.g., z->g) applied to the sum can be predefined. Using a set ofequations, these can be expressed as:

$Z = {b + {\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{N}{a_{i}w_{i}}}}$ a_(out) = g(z)

he weights are determined by training the given neural network with atraining data set, which can include multiple input and output datapairs. In some preferred embodiments, training data set is forself-learning neural networks. Although the preferred embodiment in FIG.3 depicts a feedforward neural network structure that sums the bias andeach output from the previous layer multiplied by a coefficient, andthen applying a function to the sum, other preferred embodimentscontemplate the use of various i) neural network structures (examplesdescribed in Section 1 above), ii) arrangements regarding which nodes onwhich previous layers (e.g., not just immediately previous layer but asub-set or all previous layers) would be connected, and/or iii) otheroperation(s) can be used (e.g., multiplication operation instead of orin addition to the summing operation).

In one embodiment, the above-identified coefficients (W₁, W₂, . . . ,W_(N) in FIG. 3) and output from the previous layer of nodes (a₁, a₂, .. . , a_(N) in FIG. 3) are floating point numbers. In such anembodiment, the operations at each node is a set of floating pointcalculations.

In another embodiment, the above-identified coefficients (W₁, W₂, . . ., W_(N) in FIG. 3) and output from the previous layer of nodes (a₁, a₂,. . . , a_(N) in FIG. 3) are integer numbers. In such an embodiment, theoperations at each node is a set of integer number calculations. Inthese integer number calculations, some operations may include shiftingof bits (e.g., integer numbers) for multiply/dividing in base-2, forexample.

A variation of the above embodiments is to quantize floating point inputand coefficients into integer numbers—i.e., approximating floatingpoints into integer numbers. In this embodiment, the operations at eachnode can be integer numbers calculations.

Another variation of the above embodiments can use a Look-Up-Table (LUT)instead of conducting multiplications at each node. That is, during thetraining phase, the potential input value ranges to a node can bequantized as well as the range of coefficient values, and then a LUT canbe generated for each node output—in some embodiments, certaincombination of nodes can share a LUT. An example LUT would contain anoutput value for individual combinations of quantized input levels andquantized coefficient levels. During the operation of a neural networkusing LUTs, each node would be associated with a LUT (e.g., a differentLUT for each node and/or multiple nodes sharing a LUT). In such a neuralnetwork, for a given set of inputs, the LUT would be used to locate theoutput at each node. In other words, nodal operations would be findingthe output from the associated LUT.

It should be noted that the embodiment using float point calculation maygenerate precise outputs but may take time to calculate (e.g., taking anumber of calculation/clock cycles). That is, such embodiments wouldtake more time and computing resources. The integer calculationembodiments can reduce the calculation time and computing resources atthe expense of having less precisions, while the LUT embodiments couldreduce calculation time while potentially reducing more precision. Itshould also be noted that less precision does not necessarily mean lessdesirable results for the overall goals of a particular neural network.For instances, for some applications speedy generation of outputs ismore valuable compared with more precise outputs that may take longer togenerate —examples of such applications would be a fast movingvehicles/missiles in an open space or an assembly line that may performa simple task on a fast moving components. In addition, the goals maychange for a system. For example, a supersonic missile moving at a highspeed may require speedy directional signals (outputs) from itsnavigation system initially and then, as such a missile approaches itsintended target, more precision may be required. In another example, avehicle moving fast on an open country side road may require more speedycontrol signal, while the same vehicle moving in a crowded cityenvironment may require more precision. Another example is amanufacturing assembly line, in which some component assemble mayrequire speed while other component assembly may require precision. Itis contemplated within the present invention that a machine (e.g.,automated vehicle, missile, manufacturing assembly line) can beconfigured using a set of neural networks with various speeds andprecisions. That is, if more precision is needed, nodal operations canbe floating point based; if more speed is needed, nodal operations canus LUTs/integer numbers.

In an alternative embodiment, a neural network can include a combinationof nodes with floating point operations, nodes with integer numberoperations, and/or nodes with LUT operations. For this alternativeembodiment, during the training of such neural networks, the evaluationof speed and precision requirements would be conducted at nodes. Thatis, some nodes can be determined to be less precise but need to bespeedy while others would need to be precise even if they would consumetime in performing the nodal operations. In other words, coefficientscan be floating points, integer numbers, entries in LUTs, and/orcombinations thereof.

In some hardware embodiments, no processor/accelerator for conductingfloating point calculations (e.g., no graphical processor/accelerator,digital signal processor/accelerator) may be present. In some of theseembodiments, only integer number operations can be performed (e.g.,dividing or multiplying by basis of 2 using shift registers)—on suchembodiments, neural networks with nodes having integer numbercoefficients (and/or LUTs) can be instantiated and operational.

In some other hardware embodiments, no CPU may be present. LUTs can beused as part of nodal operations. In an LUT embodiment, LUTs can bearranged with a set of memories in which the address of a memorylocation is a combination of inputs and coefficients. By way of a simpleexample, an input value could be 1234 and coefficient could be 2, thenthe address is 12342—at that location the output value is stored.

3. Settings for Neural Networks

As noted above, prior art neural networks have been trained and/oremployed to operate in complex and widely varying settings. A “setting”as used herein, refers generally to any particular environment orlocation, such as a particular condition, environment, situation and/oretc. In various embodiments of the present invention, rather than or inaddition to training a neural network with ever increasing quantity oftraining data sets to cover various settings, a neural networkcoefficient set for a neural network structure is trained using atraining data set collected for a particular setting. Non-exhaustivevarious example types of characteristics of various settings mayinclude:

For vehicles, drones, missiles, etc.:

-   -   Geographical environments: high population density city, medium        population density city, suburbia areas, rural regions, plain        regions, mountainous areas, coastal areas, etc.    -   Weather conditions—raining, snowing, clear day, windy day,        foggy, etc.    -   Situations—amount of surrounding traffic, accident ahead, wild        animals present, etc.

For speech recognition machines:

-   -   Geographical: Midwestern, southern, north eastern, etc. in the        US    -   Recognizable accents: Midwestern, Northeastern, Southern, etc.        in the US

For facial recognition machines:

-   -   Geographical: continents, countries, cities, rural areas, etc.    -   Ethnic background: Northern African, Sub-Saharan African,        Norther European, Southern European, Eastern European, Northeast        Asian, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, etc.

For an assembly line application:

-   -   Type of objects to be sorted or type of operations to be        performed on objects

For target identification in military applications:

-   -   Different targets and/or in different environments or        situations, some examples are: a. for targeting tanks/artillery        pieces/missile launchers on the surface of desert v. in forested        regions from aircraft/drones, b. for targeting drones/aircraft        on a sunny day, full moon/no moon night, or rainy day/night from        the surface

Characteristics of a setting can also relate to conditions of thesensors that generate input to neural networks, as examples: the age ofsensors; the manufacturer of sensors; or the different productslines/periods even from the same manufacturer. That is, new andmany-years old sensors from the same manufacturer and same productionline may give rise to having to use two different sets of coefficientsand/or neural network structure. In some embodiments, a setting caninclude a sensor being in a non-working condition. In these exampleembodiments, one set of coefficients with a neural network structure canbe trained under/in the setting that full collection of sensors/devicesfunctioning optimally, and other sets of coefficients with differentneural network structures trained under/in the settings when one or moresensors/devices are malfunctioning.

In various embodiments of the present invention, a training data set canbe separately collected from each setting in/under which the automatedmachine is to operate. For example, one training data set can consist ofdata collected using various sensors in a setting that can becharacterized as a desert area, country side, and during day time withno wild animal activities. Another setting for a training data set canbe characterized as data collected from a desert area, a suburbanregion, and during night time with some wild animal activities. Adifferent setting for another training data set can consist of datacollected using various sensors in a large city environment, duringnight time, and with a large number of pedestrians. For each of thesedifferent training set, a particular neural network—setup with a neuralnetwork structure—is trained. A trained neural network results in a setof coefficients (that is each node ends up with coefficients after atraining session) for the particular setting in/under which trainingdata set is collected. It should be noted that in some preferredembodiments, in addition to having a training data set for each setting,similar settings can have the same set of coefficients and neuralnetwork structure (e.g., downtown New York City and downtown Boston canuse the same set of coefficients, sand dunes in the Sahara Desert andsand dunes in the Death Valley can use the same set of coefficients,etc.).

The setting can also be factor in determining the precision level and/orthe speed of nodal operations as discussed above in connection with FIG.3. For instance, some settings may require floating point nodaloperations—in which floating point coefficient nodal operations aredesirable, while some setting may require speed, in which LUTs nodaloperations are desirable. For some embodiments in which intermediatespeed v. precision is required, integer number nodal operations may bedesirable. It should be noted that the setting can also factor in thehardware limitations on which a neural network is to be instantiated andoperated (e.g., no floating point accelerator, no CPU or the like asdescribed above).

In an exemplary preferred embodiment to describe a coefficient set, aneural network can be a feedforward network and can have an input layer(e.g., five nodes), an output layer (e.g., three nodes), and five hiddenlayers with five nodes each. In this structure, the example neuralnetwork has 25 nodes among the hidden layers. Using the nodalcoefficient example depicted in FIG. 3, each hidden layer node and eachoutput layer node can have five weights/coefficients including a biasweight value in the example neural network. Once a set of coefficientsare determined from training using the data set collected in aparticular setting, such a set is associated with characteristics to thesetting (as exemplified above: desert, daytime, countryside, etc.) asdescribed below in connection with Table 1 (and also may furtherdescribed in connection with Tables 2 and 3). In this preferredexemplary embodiment, all stored coefficient sets are for a feedforwardnetwork having an input layer (five nodes), an output layer (threenodes), and five hidden layers with five nodes each. To storeinformation/data relating to a large number of different settings, adatabase management system can be employed. By segmenting settings, eachsetting may exhibit a constant/consistent environment, condition, and/orsituation, and a neural network trained for a specific setting maybecome more accurate within the trained setting.

It should be noted that in some other preferred embodiments of thepresent invention, the database can include coefficient sets withdifferent neural network structures depending on the optimal structurefor different settings. For instance, a number of sets of coefficientscan be for feedforward networks, while other sets can be for backpropagation networks or other neural network structures such as thoseprovided above in Section 1, for example.

In some preferred embodiments, in addition to the coefficients, thedatabase can store:

-   -   More information about the neural network structure such as the        type of structure, the number of layers, the number of nodes on        each layer, nodal connection information between and/or within        each layer, and/or other information to define a neural network;    -   Type(s) of nodal operations to be performed (e.g., floating        points, integer numbers, and/or LUTs) and/or    -   Executable modules of neural networks having the neural network        structures and corresponding coefficients.

The automated machine can broadly refer to a machine that is to becontrolled by a control mechanism, with some human intervention ifnecessary. Examples of an automated machine can be appliances (e.g.,ovens, refrigerators) with automated controllers (e.g., Internet ofThings, “IoT” controllers), a speech generator, a speech recognitionsystem, a facial recognition system, an automated personal assistant(e.g., Alexa by Amazon, Inc., Ski by Apple, Inc.), an autonomousvehicle, a robot, a target recognition system (e.g., in military defenseapplications such as missiles and drones), and etc. Also, an automatedmachine does not necessarily mean a completely automated manual-lessmachine that requires no human intervention, but it may require aqualified person to take over the control (e.g., driving) under certaincircumstances.

4. Detailed Implementation Example Embodiments

In one example preferred embodiment illustrated in FIG. 4, automatedmachine 401 may include a machine-to-be-controlled (“MTBC”) 403, amachine controller (“MC”) 405, and a setting change detector andcontroller (“SCDC”) 407. The system illustrated in FIG. 4 also includesa coefficient database management system (“C-DBMS”) 409, which isdepicted as located outside the automated machine 401 whileoperationally coupled thereto. Note that in such an embodiment, theC-DBMS 409 can be located at a remote server and coupled to communicatewith the automated machine. In some other preferred embodiments, asub-set or the whole of the C-DBMS 409 can be co-located with anautomated machine 401 or can be considered as a part of the automatedmachine. In yet another embodiment, the whole of the C-DBMS 409 can beco-located with the automated machine 401 and implemented on hardware orfirmware for fast accesses of the information stored therein.

In FIG. 4, the MTBC 403, MC 405, SCDC 407 and C-DBMS 409 are describedas individual modules. As such, they can be located remote from eachother. For instance, in an example windmill embodiment, the machine canbe the components of a wind-turbine, the MTBC 403 can be locatedproximate to or on the wind-turbine to receive input from input devices(e.g., wind speed sensor) and to control the speed of the generator, theangle of the blades, the rotation of the wind-turbine. Continuing withthe windmill example, the MC 405 and the SCDC 407 can be located at thebase of the windmill for the ease of access, and the C-DBMS 409 can belocated at a server located remote from the windmill. It should be notedin some preferred embodiments, the MTBC 403, MC 405, SCDC 407 and C-DBMS409 are one whole module rather than individual modules. It should alsobe noted that, although the MTBC 403 is named as “machine to becontrolled,” MTBC 403 preferably may include various interfaces toreceive data from various sensors and/or devices and various interfacesto send control information to components (e.g., motors, actuators, loudspeakers) in controlling the automated machine on which the MTBC 403 isto control.

It should be noted that the MTBC 403, MC 405, SCDC 407 and C-DBMS 409can be implemented on/as hardware, firmware, software modules orcombination of them. In case of being software modules, those modulescan be implemented as virtual machine(s) and/or software container(s).

Input data 419 generated by the MTBC 403 is sent over to the MC 405 tobe processed (e.g., inferenced) by an ImNN 421. The MC 405 generatescontrol data 415, which is sent over to the MTBC 403. The MC 405 alsogenerates status data 413 for the SCDC 407, and the SCDC 407 uses asignal for the MC 417 to control the life cycle of the ImNN 421 (e.g.,instantiate, terminate, run, and etc.) The values of setting data 411are sent from the MTBC 403 to the SCDC 407. In various embodiments ofthe present invention, the values of setting data 411 (although “of” isused, in various embodiments of the present invention, the values can bealso described as “on” setting data 411 as on a data bus or obtained“from” the setting data 411 as in from shared memory) can be seen asdata collected/captured/sensed by various of sensors relating to thesetting (e.g., environment, condition, situation, and etc.). The valuesof the setting data 411 can be referred to as setting characteristicvalues.

In FIG. 4, the MTBC 403 is coupled with the MC 405 via the input data419 and control data 415, the MC 405 and the SCDC 407 are coupled withthe status data 413 and signal for MC 417, the MTBC 403 and the SCDC 407are coupled with the setting data 411, and the SCDC 407 and C-DBMS 409are coupled with two directional arrows 421 and 423—the coupling 421sends queries from SCDC 407 to the C-DBMS 409 and the coupling 423 sendsresults of the queries to the SCDC 407. These above-mentioned couplingmechanisms, and those illustrated in FIGS. 11 and 12 below, providecommunication mechanisms to send and/or receive data and/or controlsignal(s). The coupling mechanism can be implemented using, for example,shared memory, sockets (in socket communication) and/or hardwareimplemented data/control signal buses. In particular, the input data 419sends data from various sensors/devices located in the MTBC 403 to theMC 405, control data 415 sends data to control various controllablecomponents interfacing with the MTBC 405, the status data 413 sends datafrom the MC 405 about the status of the ImNN(s) 412, the signal for MC417 is the data to control the ImNN(s), and the setting data 411 sendsdata from various sensors/devices in the MTBC 403—that is, the settingcharacteristic values.

With respect to the MTBC 403, it includes (or has interfaces to) variousinput sensors/devices, communication devices and machine controldevices, such as a thermometer, pressure sensor, compass, altimeter,gyroscope, accelerometer, image sensor, cameras, video cameras,magnetometer, light detectors (e.g., visible, infra-red, ultra-violet),barometer, humidity measuring device, radiation sensor, audio/soundsensor, e.g., microphone, geographical positions system (GPS) device,ground to surface distance (GSD) device and/or etc. From these inputsensors/devices various setting characteristic values can be obtained.For example, the temperature from a thermometer, air pressure (e.g., ofa tire) from a pressure sensor, magnetic North from a compass, altitudefrom an altimeter, orientation information from a gyroscope,acceleration information from an accelerometer, images from an imagesensor or camera, video frames from a video cameras, magnetic fieldinformation from a magnetometer, ambient light variation informationfrom light detectors, atmospheric/ambient air pressure from a barometer,humidity level from humidity measuring device, radiation level from aradiation sensor, voice from audio/sound sensor, geospatial informationfrom a GPS device.

In an autonomous land vehicle example, the MTBC 403 may include (orinterfaces to) a number of sensors and internal computing devices, withthe following examples, to control the vehicle while traveling intraffic with other land vehicles. Sensors for collecting externalsurrounding information include one more front view cameras (e.g.,digital camera), a night vision camera(s), a front object lasersensor(s), front and rear millimeter radars and sensors, an ambientlight sensor, pedestrian/animal detecting IR sensor (s), a side viewcamera(s) on each side, a night vision camera(s) on each side, aproximity sensor(s) on each side, a panoramic/wide angle view sensor(s)(e.g., 100 degrees, 180 degrees, and/or 360 degrees view digitalcameras), a LIDAR sensor, a tire pressure sensor for each mounted tire,a wheel speed sensor for each wheel, a rear view camera(s) (e.g.,digital camera), and/or a review view night vision camera(s). As usedherein, a “camera” is a broad term and refers to any of a number ofimaging devices/systems that collect data representative of an “image”(e.g., a one or multi-dimensional representation of information) withone or more sensors (e.g., film or one or more electronic sensors),unless the context of the usage indicates otherwise. The number ofcameras and sensors having various views may be mounted on an autonomousland vehicle so that, preferably, there are no gaps or blind spotseither going forward or backward. Sensors can also include GPS devices,gyroscopes, and etc. that give the direction, velocity, and/or locationinformation of the automated machine.

Moreover, sensors for collecting operational information and havinginterfaces with the MTBC 403 include a driver drowsiness sensor,steering angle sensor, a throttle (e.g., gas pedal) pressure sensor,and/or a bread pedal sensor. In addition to sensors, the autonomousvehicle may also include communication devices to send and receive datafrom a network (e.g., cell phone network, Wi-Fi, GPS and/or other typesof communication networks that provide secured communication method) andfrom other vehicles via vehicle-to-vehicle communication networks (e.g.,VANETs) that provides secured communication links. These devices mayalso interface with the MTBC 403.

The autonomous vehicle may be configured to include or to interface witha communication device (e.g., a cell phone, radio, or the like) on itsown within to interface with the MTBC 403 or include a docking system toconnect to a communication device. If the autonomous vehicle includes adocking system to connect to a cell phone and has no other means ofconnecting to the cell phone network, such a vehicle may provide anadditional anti-theft feature by disabling the automated drivingfunction or disabling the entire driving function without beingconnecting to the communication network with the communication device.

Machine control devices interfacing with the MTBC 403 for the autonomousland vehicle may include (or include interfaces to) adaptive cruisecontrol, an on-board computer(s), one or more control chips and/orcontrol mechanisms to control the breaking, throttle, and steering wheelsystems. Machine control devices interfacing with the MTBC 403 for adrone having fixed wings may include mechanisms to control elevator(s),flap(s), and/or aileron(s), in addition mechanisms to control thethrust(s) and the ruder. If a drone has rotor(s), the MTBC 403 mayinclude (or has interfaces to) a control mechanism for the rotor(s).Machine control devices within the MTBC 403 for a missile withaerodynamic devices (e.g., canard(s), wing(s), and/or tail(s)), mayinclude (or has interfaces to) control mechanisms for those devices.Machine control devices within the MTBC 403 for a robot may include (orhas interfaces to) control mechanisms for various actuators (e.g.,pneumatic actuators, hydraulic actuators, and/or electric actuators.)For a speech generator, a control mechanism (or interface thereto) maycontrol input to loud speakers. Automated machines such as drones,missiles, robots or the like can include various types sensors/devicesor interfaces thereto as described above for particular use of thosemachines. It should also be noted that a cell phone can be an automatedmachine as used herein since a cell phone can have sensors (e.g.,microphone(s), camera(s)) to generate input to a facial recognitionsystem, a finger print recognition system, a speech recognition system,or a speech generator.

Continuing on with FIG. 4, the MC 405 can include one or moreimplementation neural network (ImNN). At the initial stage, in apreferred embodiment, the SCDC 407 can instantiate an ImNN with adefault neural network structure with a default set ofcoefficients—e.g., a fork ImNN process is created with a default set ofcoefficients with a default neural network structure, via the signal forthe MC 405, as shown in FIG. 4. In this embodiment, the automatedmachine can start its operation with the default arrangements. As theSCDC 407 receives the setting characteristic values from the MTBC 403,it determines whether to keep the default set or to query the C-DBMS409, which is described in more detail in connection with Table 1 (andalso may be further described in connection with Tables 2 and 3).

In another preferred embodiments, as illustrated in FIG. 4a , controldata 415 is not sent to MTBC 403 or input data 419 is not inferenced byMC 405 until:

a. (step 451) receives values of setting data 411 relating to thesetting characteristics from the MTBC 403,

b. (step 452) queries the C-DBMS 409 with the received settingcharacteristic values which (step 453) returns A) a set of coefficientsand/or a neural network structure associated with the received settingcharacteristic values or B) the neural network executable module (or apointer thereto) having the structure and/or the coefficients—based onthe information stored in the C-DBMS 409,

c. (step 454) instantiates a new ImNN using A) the set of coefficientsand/or the neural network structure or B) the neural network executablemodule, and

d. the new ImNN becomes operational.

Various sensors/devices on the MTBC 403 can generate input data to besent to the MC 405, which in turn use the input data to generate controldata after conducting inferences on the input data. Here, all or asubset of input data can be inferenced on by the ImNN utilizing the setof coefficients and the neural network structure used in instantiatingthe ImNN.

Some of the sensors/devices on the MTBC 403 may generate the settingcharacteristic values for the SCDC 407. These sensors/devices can be thesame sensors/devices, a subset of sensors/devices, or a different set ofsensors/devices (that may include a subset of sensors/devices) on theMTBC 403 or elsewhere on the automated machine that generates inputdata. The SCDC 407 can continually or periodically (e.g., every fractionof a second, a second, a minute, or etc.) receive the settingcharacteristic values—individually, sub-set at a time, or all at oncewith/without a notice signal (e.g., an interrupt signal)—from the MTBC403. The notice signal notifies the SCDC 407 that a set of settingcharacteristic values are prepared and will follow.

Subsequent to the ImNN becoming operational (“the currently operationalImNN”), the automated machine may move into or may be encountering adifferent geographical region, environment, or situation (e.g., the timeof the day, weather, etc.). The information relating to the environment,condition, situation, and/or etc. (i.e., setting characteristic values)is received by the SCDC 407 as noted above. If a change in the settingis sensed (e.g., day turns to evening, sunny to cloudy, country sideenvironment to suburban environment), the C-DBMS 409 is queried, usingthe current set of the setting characteristic values.

More specifically, in some embodiments of the present invention, theSCDC 407 may determine to query the C-DBMS 409 based on one or moresensor/device data. For example, the SCDC 407 can be prearranged suchthat when weather changes from warm to cold (e.g., with specifictemperature threshold), the C-DBMS 409 is queried using the current setof setting characteristic values received from the MTBC 403. In anotherexample, when output of a clock indicates a sunset time according to theseasonal and geographical location information, the C-DBMS 409 isqueried using the current set of setting characteristic values receivedfrom the MTBC 403. In another example, the output from a light sensorcan be used to cause the SCDC 407 to query C-DBMS 409 using the currentset of setting characteristic values received from the MTBC 403. In someother preferred embodiments, the SCDC 407 can determine to query theC-DBMS 409 periodically (e.g., every minute, certain number of minutes,tens of minutes, etc.) using the current set of setting characteristicvalues received from the MTBC 403. In yet some other embodiments, theSCDC 407 can determine to query the C-DBMS after elapse of a certainamount of time since the last query to the C-DBMS 409 using the currentset of setting characteristic values received from the MTBC 403. In someother embodiments, the SCDC 407 can determine to query each time a setof setting characteristic values are received from the MTBC with thenotice signal using the current set of setting characteristic valuesreceived from the MTBC 403. Various events described above that causesquerying the C-DBMS 409 can be used individually or a combinationthereof.

It should be noted that, after instantiating a new ImNN and having itprocess through input data to start generating output may take a numberof clock cycles—a transition phase. The currently operational ImNN canbe designated as a to-be-terminated ImNN during the transition phase. Insome embodiments, as illustrated in FIG. 4b , during the transitionphase, the to-be-terminated ImNN (that can be referred to as the oldImNN) can continue to run until a new ImNN is properly initiated (e.g.,another fork created and instantiated with the coefficient set) andbecomes operational (e.g., receiving input data and generating outputdata). In these embodiments, subsequent to (or simultaneous with) thenew ImNN becoming operational, the to-be-terminated ImNN can beterminated. In another embodiment, during the transition phase, theto-be-terminated ImNN can be terminated at the end of the phase but runslowly (e.g., generating output every other clock cycle)—in thisexample, the to-be-terminated ImNN may not generate optimal outputduring the transition phase.

In another example embodiments, the next setting may be predicted. Thatis, as a vehicle moves from a country side towards a city, the SCDC 407can be configured to predict the approaching city setting (e.g., bycalculating the speed, the direction, and GPS information) and can beconfigured to instantiate a new ImNN with the city characteristicsbefore the actual arrival at the city (e.g., with A) a new neuralnetwork executable module or B) the coefficients and/or structure,queried from the C-DBMS 409—that is, queried with predicted settingcharacteristic values). In these example embodiments, the new ImNN canstart inferencing the input data and generating output at or before thevehicle crosses the city boundary from the country side. In other words,the new ImNN may run simultaneously with the current ImNN, but theoutput from the current ImNN may be used to control such a vehicle, asillustrated in FIG. 4c . As the vehicle crosses from a country side intoa city environment, the output from the new ImNN may be used to controlthe vehicle while the current ImNN (that can be referred to as the oldImNN) is terminated. The new ImNN may run until a new setting isdetected or predicted. In these embodiments, the length of thetransition phase can be shortened. In FIGS. 4b and 4c , time flows fromthe left side to the right side.

Similar embodiments to shorten the transition phase can be contemplatedwith, for example, changing time (e.g., predicting the day time changingto evening time or night time changing to morning time), weather (e.g.,approaching storm), temperature (e.g., from weather forecast), trafficcongestion (e.g., from traffic report), and etc. It should also be notedthat if the approaching setting is not predictable with certainty (e.g.,weather forecast), multiple ImNNs case be pre-instantiated (e.g., basedon possible approaching weather patterns).

Although FIG. 4 is explicitly showing one ImNN instantiated as part ofthe MC 405, in various embodiments of the present invention, more thanone ImNN can be instantiated and become operational. In some preferredembodiments, various ImNNs (that is, they may have same/different setsof coefficients and/or same/different neural network structures) can beconnected serially such that output from one ImNN are further inferencedby another ImNN. In some other preferred embodiments, various ImNNs canbe connected in parallel such that input from one input source can beinferenced by various multiple ImNNs. Intermittent between variousImNNs, there can be logic/algorithm inserted to further process data, insome preferred embodiments (e.g., adding, combining, multiplying, andthresholding outputs from the various ImNNs). In the case of multipleImNNs, the SCDC 407 has the corresponding control mechanisms for each ofthe instantiated ImNN.

The C-DBMS 409 can include searchable information associated with eachsetting. That is, for each setting, the C-DBMS 409 can includeinformation on ranges of setting characteristic values (which can alsobe referred to as setting characteristic value ranges) and an associatedset of coefficients and/or neural network structure. The C-DBMS 409 canbe searched based on the setting characteristic values to find a set ofcoefficients and/or neural network structure for a given settingcharacteristic values.

Table 1 below illustrates a table of searchable entries for the purposeof illustrating information that can be stored and organized into adatabase, such as the C-DBMS 409. Various embodiments of the presentinvention contemplate using one or more of the database types: textbased, document based, hierarchical, relational, or object-orienteddatabase management systems. Also, Table 1 illustrates one-to-onerelationship between the sets of setting characteristic value ranges andsets of coefficients/neural network structures. Each entry is numberedas #1, #2, #3, . . . , #n. Various embodiments of the present inventionallow many-to-one or one-to-many relationships between the set ofsetting characteristic value ranges and the set of coefficients/neuralnetwork structures.

TABLE 1 Entry Ambient Coefficient # Time Location Weather Temp . . .Structure Array 1 Day time 1^(st) Ranges of Sunny Above feedforward1^(st) set of range Latitudes freezing coefficients Longitudes [. . .] 2Day time 2^(nd) Ranges of Cloudy Above feedforward 2^(nd) set of rangeLats + Longs freezing coefficients [. . .] 3 Night 3^(rd) Ranges of RainAbove Back 3^(rd) set of time Lats + Longs freezing propagationcoefficients [. . .] . . . n Evening N^(th) Ranges of Sunny FreezingRestricted N^(th) set of twilight Lats + Longs Boltzmann coefficients [.. .]

Although Table 1 illustrates various pieces of information (e.g.,setting characteristic value ranges, coefficients, and structure) thatare placed in one location (that is, Table 1), various embodiments ofthe present invention contemplated other embodiments in which the piecesof information can be located in remote locations from each other butlinked for the database to function.

Table 1 above depicts various information that can be stored in C-DBMS409. The top row lists example setting characteristic types: time,location, weather, ambient temperature. The top row also listsdescriptive names for other columns: structure and coefficient array.The top row is provided for the ease of explaining various columns ofinformation. In this example, the Time refers to input from a clock, thelocation refers to latitude and longitude from a GPS device, the weatherrefers to information from a barometer, a light sensor and/or a moisturesensor, and the ambient temperature refers to input from a thermometer.

The descriptive names “Structure” refers to a neural network structure,and “Coefficient Array” refers to a set of nodal coefficients for theneural network structure. In various preferred embodiments, theinformation contained in the columns of Coefficients Array and Structurecombined is sufficient to instantiate corresponding neural network(s)for the associated setting.

In first example preferred embodiments, each of the entries has a neuralnetwork structure, which may include a pointer to an executable modulein a library of compiled sets of executable modules of neural networks.For instance, a library for Table 1 could include pointers to theexecutable modules of neural networks for feedforward, back propagation,and Restrict Boltzmann types (although other types can be alsoincluded). For a specific example, using entry #1, the “feedforward” inthe column designated as the Structure can be a pointer to a particularversion of a feedforward neural network executable module trained withtraining data set from the associated setting. The SCDC 407 can use theexecutable module and the set of corresponding coefficients in entry #1to instantiate the feedforward neural network.

In second example preferred embodiments, the executable neural networkmodules may could already have been compiled with a specific set ofnodal coefficients. For these example executables, the column in Table 1designated as Coefficients Array may not be necessary—the pointers tothe associated neural network executable module may be sufficient toinstantiate the specified neural network, since these modules alreadyhave the coefficients compiled therein. Although the first and secondexamples of preferred embodiments above have been described in terms ofcomputer programs/libraries, the library of neural networks can beimplemented in hardware, firmware or combinations of hardware, firmwareand software modules. In addition, instead of pointers, the modulesthemselves can be stored on the database as entries.

In various other preferred embodiments, the entries for the Structureentry may include information relating to the type of neural network andits basic layout, for example, nodal layers—input, output, hidden—andtypes of nodes, such as input node, hidden node, memory node, differentmemory node, convolutional node, probabilistic node, and etc. sufficientto generate automatically the corresponding executable neural networkmodule—which then can be instantiated with the corresponding set ofcoefficients. In some of such preferred embodiments, the generatedexecutable module then can be stored in the C-DBMS 409 for later use. Itshould also be noted that some executable neural network modules can becompiled with their corresponding coefficients, while other executableneural network modules can be complied without coefficients alreadyspecified (for these embodiments, the entries in the “CoefficientsArray” may be needed. It should be noted that a database (e.g., theC-DBMS 409) can be configured to store a mixture of entries that havepointers to neural network modules with/without coefficients alreadycompiled therein, neural network modules rather than pointers, orinformation sufficient to generate executable neural network modules.

Returning back to Table 1, for each of numbered entries, ranges ofvalues are provided for each setting characteristic type. For example,the time has a range (e.g., day time or night time), the location hasranges of latitudes and longitudes to indicate a particular region(e.g., a desert area bound by a set of latitudes and longitudes that canbe compared with GPS data from the MTBC 403). In other words, for eachentry (e.g., an entry representing a setting) each type ofcharacteristics (e.g., Time, Location, Weather, and Temperature) of asetting is defined with a range of setting characteristic values, whichcan be referred to as a range of values.

Various sensors/devices on the MTBC 403 may generate settingcharacteristic values which are matched with each entry—determining ifthe values received on setting data 411 fall within the ranges provided.For example, the setting characteristic values can be: a clock indicates10 AM, a GPS may input latitudes and longitudes that fall within the1^(st) ranges, a light detector may indicate sunny, and a thermometerinputs 10 degrees Celsius. In this example the received values onsetting data 411 fall within the setting characteristic value ranges ofthe first entry. In this case, the associated set of neural networkcoefficients is the 1^(st) set of coefficients and the associated neuralnetwork structure is a feedforward neural network of the entrydesignated as #1. Another set of setting characteristic values may matchwith one of ranges defined for entries #2, #3, . . . , #n.

In sum, Table 1 can be described as each entry (e.g., #1, #2, #3, . . ., #n) having setting characteristic value ranges that corresponds tocharacteristics of a setting. For example, if the 1^(st) Ranges ofLatitudes Longitudes may cover a desert area boundaries, this means thecharacteristics of entry #1 can be a setting that is a desert area,daytime, above freezing and sunny.

Although the selection process is described above as using the settingcharacteristic values and the setting characteristic value ranges, inother various embodiments of the present invention, the selectionprocess can be performed by probabilistic algorithms. That is ratherthan search only for the entry that the setting characteristic valuesfall within the setting characteristic value ranges, proximity to thoseranges can be calculated. The entry being the closest (e.g., having thelargest number of the setting characteristic values fall within thegiven setting characteristic value ranges) to the setting characteristicvalues can then be selected.

Even though, the setting characteristic values are defined usingnumerical ranges of values in Table 1, in other preferred embodiments,other methods can be used to represent ranges. For example, in someembodiments image(s) can be used to represent the ranges (e.g., imagesof grey sky to represent the ranges of cloudy sky). In this example, theimages representing the ranges can be further processed to turn theminto a set of numerical values or use them as images in matching imagesreceived from a camera.

In some embodiments of the present invention, a subset of the settingcharacteristics can be used to locate the coefficient arrays. In anotherpreferred embodiment, more types of setting characteristic values fromdifferent sensors/devices can be added as indicated by the column with “. . . ” (e.g., traveling speed, language spoken, ethnic group, and etc.)Also, in some embodiments, the column for the structure may not benecessary if all neural networks to be employed have the same structure.

In some preferred embodiments, the C-DBMS 409 can also include a processmap for each setting. In various embodiments of the present invention, aprocess map can be a neural network workflow, a neural network schema,or a neural network descriptive document. In an example, a process mapcan include multiple ImNNs (each with a corresponding A) sets ofcoefficients and/or a neural network structure associated with the datavalues or B) the neural network executable modules (or pointers thereto)having the structure and/or the coefficients) connected serially, inparallel, or in combination with possible intermittent logic/algorithm,as illustrated with an example in Table 2 (that is, the “n” entrytherein). In these preferred embodiments, the C-DBMS 409 query resultsin a process map. The SCDC 407 interprets the process map andinstantiates neural networks in accordance with the process map.

TABLE 2 Entry Ambient Coefficient # Time Location Weather Temp . . .Structure Array 1 Day 1^(st) Ranges of Sunny Above feedforward 1^(st)set [. . .] time Latitudes freezing range Longitudes 2 Day 2^(nd) Rangesof Cloudy Above feedforward 2^(nd) set [. . .] time Lats + Longsfreezing range 3 Night 3^(rd) Ranges of Rain Above Back 3^(rd) set [. ..] time Lats + Longs freezing propagation . . . n Evening N^(th) Rangesof Foggy Above Map: Array for the twilight Lats + Longs freezing Inputto two first feedforward feedforward neural Array for the networkssecond Sum the feedforward output from Array for the the two nets backthen the sum propagation to a back propagation

In some embodiments, the entries that populate the C-DBMS 409 are madein such a way that there is i) no overlap between the possible settingcharacteristic values between different settings and ii) no null spacebetween or outside the possible setting characteristic values betweendifferent settings. In these embodiments, when a query is made to theC-DBMS 409 by the SCDC 407 with the received setting characteristicvalues from the MTBC 403, one entry will be matched among the entries onthe C-DBMS 409 and the information (e.g., A) the pointer to one matchingneural network executable module or B) the values of a set of thecoefficients and neural network structure thereof) will be sent back tothe SCDC 407. An example of these embodiment is entries for 48contiguous States—each entry defining the ranges of longitudes andlatitudes for a State. In this embodiment output from a GPS deviceshould fall into one of the 48 entries, and there is no null spacebetween the ranges for the States. If the GPS is to operate within the48 States, there is no null space outside thereof.

In some other embodiments, there can be some null spaces between oroutside the possible setting characteristic values. An example of theseembodiments is an entity training neural networks for automated machinesthat are to operate within large cities. Such a set of entries may havenull spaces outside the large cities. In these embodiments a null valuewill be sent back to the SCDC 407, when a set of setting characteristicvalues falls into a null space. The SCDC 407 in turn can instruct thecurrently operational ImNN to continue to operate. There can be otherinstructions such as stop operating the entire automated machine, orsend a signal for an augmented manual operation. More on the inputsample data being outside the input sample space is described below inconnection with FIG. 11.

In some other embodiments, there can be overlaps between the possiblecharacteristic values. The overlaps can be partial or complete. If theC-DBM 409 is queried with a set of setting characteristic values thatfalls within such an overlap, the C-DBMS 409 can return more than A) oneneural network executable modules or B) one set of coefficients andneural network structures. An example of these embodiments is an entryfor large cities and entry for the downtown of the large cities. Thesetwo entries could overlap. In these embodiments, the SCDC 407 candetermine to use one of the more than one set returned from the C-DBMS409. In one example, the SCDC 407 can use the set that cover the largestgeographical area or use the set that cover the smallest geographicalarea. This feature of using geographical setting characteristic valueranges to address overlaps can be applied to other settingcharacteristics and/or a combination thereof.

In some embodiments, a neural network confidence level for each entrycan be included as another column to, e.g., Table 1. The confidencelevel for each entry represents the confidence level for the neuralnetwork that is instantiated. For ease of reference, this confidencelevel is referred to as a neural network (NN) confidence level, which isdifferent from an output confidence level. As noted above, an outputconfidence level is the confidence level of the selected class (i.e.,output) for given input data being the correct one based on the scoresof other classes. An NN confidence level can be determined based onprobabilistic analysis of the training data set. For example, trainingdata set having a narrow distribution among input sample values may begiven a higher NN confidence level compared with another training dataset having a broad distribution among its input sample values or viceversa depending on settings and/or applications. In another example, insome embodiments a training data set is associated with a testing dataset. The NN confidence level can be the score of correct outcomes of aparticular neural network after inferencing with such a testing dataset. In yet another example, a neural network with floating point nodaloperations (and/or the output therefrom) may be assigned to a higherconfidence level compared with a neural network with integer numbernodal operations or a neural network with LUT nodal operations (whichmay be assigned to have the lowest confidence level).

In the embodiments with NN confidence levels, the entries returned bythe C-DBMS 409 because of the overlap may also have the NN confidencelevels. The SCDC 407 can use the values of the NN confidence levels,e.g., pick the entry with the highest NN confidence level.

It should be noted that different parts of the embodiments of thepresent invention can be implemented by different manufacturingentities. That is, the sensors and various components on the MC 405 canbe manufactured by one or more entities, while the C-DBMS 409 entriescan be populated by other manufacturing entities. In other words, thisallows some manufacturers to concentrate on improving sensors and such,while allowing other manufacturers/entities to concentrate on improvingthe accuracies of ImNNs. For these example embodiments, the electronicformat of the entries for the C-DBMS 409, the type of databasemanagement system used, and others may be specified (e.g., standardized)such that the C-DBMS 409 can be populated, queried, receive results ofqueries, and updated by different entities. Another aspect of theseadvantages of the present invention may be that the user of the SCDC 407is allowed to test the accuracy of the entries in the C-DBMS 409 toaccept or reject after testing. In some embodiments, an NN confidencelevel can be assigned to each of the entries in the C-DBMS 409.

Without storing the coefficients for different settings on a databasemanagement system, numerous neural networks can be deployed on theautomated machine (i.e., the coefficients already fixed for eachdeployed neural network as in example embodiments described above inconnection with Table 1). However, such arrangement requires numerousneural networks and may not be adaptable to new settings without updatesto the deployed neural networks.

In some embodiments, the controllers—MC 405, SCDC 407, and C-DBMS 409can be setup as standalone processes communicating with inter-processcommunication (IPC) protocols, as described in more detail below inconnection with FIG. 5.

5. Plug-in Smart Architecture (PISA)

Various preferred embodiments described above can be implemented on acomputing machine, for example, as a set of modules on a processor. FIG.5 illustrates such an example preferred embodiment, which is describedin terms of modules created using various memory spaces on a processorand in terms of various aspects of the operations of the modules. Eachmodule can be considered as an individual machine when being operational(e.g., executing stored instructions) on a processor. In particular, asystem module 501 (an example embodiment of the MTBC 403) may initiate aPISA module 503, which is an example implementation of the SCDC 409.This initiation can be performed by creating a fork 504 by a controlprocess 573, which in some embodiments control the status and/or theoperations of the PISA module 503 and the neural network module 507. Thesystem module 501 can also initiate the input data stream 505 andinitiate the output data stream 507 with a handle (e.g., a pointer) forthe input stream 505 and another handle for the output stream 507,respectively.

The system module 501 created in memory space 503 can include interfacesto send/receive input/output to/from various sensors/devices such as alight-detecting and ranging radar (LIDAR) 551, global positioning system(GPS) 553, inertial measurement unit (IMU) 555, camera sensors 557 orthe like. The system module 501 can have its own controlling algorithmsrelating to sensing 559 (receiving data from various inputsensors/devices, perception 561 that analyzes the received data,decision 563 for making decisions based on the perceptions, and/orplanning 565 to carry out the decisions. Output from all or subparts ofthe controlling algorithms can form a part of the input data stream 505,in addition to various sensors/devices with which the system module 501is configured to interface. The various steps can be performed onreal-time operating system (OS) 567 and on a Graphical Process Unit(GPU) 569 and/or Floating Points Graphical Accelerator (FPGA) 571.

The PISA module 503 may perform the following tasks:

-   -   a. Gets the System State 513 (e.g., the values of the current        setting characteristic values in FIG. 4) through, for example,        the PISA Bus Library 508, which can be a library of interfaces        that allows the PISA module 503 to interface with the Neural        Network module 507 and the system module 501 in carrying out        various functions/algorithms/routines as described in this        Section.    -   b. PISA Database Control 505 is configured to interface with        (including querying) a Configuration Library 506 (e.g., C-DBMS        409). The Configuration Library 506 contains various neural        network Coefficients Array and Structures (e.g., Table 1). Based        on the System State values, the corresponding neural network        coefficients and/or neural network structure(s) are retrieved        from the Configuration Library 506. In turn, the retrieved        neural network coefficients and/or neural network structure(s)        are used to instantiate a neural network module 507.    -   c. PISA Business Logic 509 can send/receive the status        information of the neural network module 507 (e.g., the MC 405).        The neural network module 507 can be created by a fork 508 in a        new memory space as well as assigned with a listening socket        511. This socket 511 can be used to share current status of the        neural network module 507 with the PISA module 503.    -   d. PISA Bus Lib 508 may continually poll for the current System        State        -   i. If the System State changes to a different state (that            is, the setting changes) from the previous state, the            following may occur:            -   1. The PISA (Business Logic) 509, which contains various                functions/algorithms/routines as described in this                Section, initiates a kill process through the status                socket or            -   2. The PISA (Business Logic) 509 initiates a suspend                process through the status socket or            -   3. The PISA (Business Logic) 509 initiates an update                system configuration process through the status socket.            -   4. Step b above may be followed by the above 1 or 2 or 3                processes.        -   ii. If the System State does not change, no action is taken.    -   e. PISA (Business Logic) 509 can review the status from the        Neural Network module 507 and communicates status to the System        module 501 via the PISA Bus Lib 508.

Neural Network module 507 (instantiated via a fork 510 from the PISAmodule 503) may perform the following tasks:

-   -   a. The Neural Network module 507 initiates a neural network        dynamically linked library (NN DLL) 517 (e.g., ImNN in FIG. 4)        within the module's memory address space;    -   b. The PISA Bus Lib 508 establishes connection to System Input        Stream 505;    -   c. The PISA Bus Lib 508 establishes connection to System Output        Stream 507;    -   d. PISA Xmitter 523 establishes the Status Socket 511 back to        the PISA module 503;    -   e. The NN DLL 517 may perform the following:        -   i. The NN DLL 517 processes data from System Input Stream            505 to generate results for System Output Stream 507 via the            PISA Bus Lib 508 (that is, performs inferences on the Input            Stream);        -   ii. NN DLL 517 pushes status via the PISA Xmitter 523            through the Status Socket 511 on regular intervals to the            PISA module 503;        -   iii. NN DLL 517 processes requests from the PISA module 503            as requested to include:            -   1) Kill current NN DLL 517 process            -   2) Suspend current NN DLL 517 process            -   3) Update system configuration

It should be noted that in some preferred example embodiments, the PISABus Lib 508, the PISA Bus Lib 521 and another PISA Bus Lib (not shown)on the system module 501 can be the same set of interfaceroutines/managers. In other example preferred embodiments, the PISA BusLib on the system module can have the largest set, a subset of which isincluded in the PISA Bus Lib 508, and in turn a subset of which isincluded in the PISA Bus Lib 521.

FIG. 6 illustrates various preferred steps performed by the systemmodule 501. In step 601, raw data (as received from the system module501 but the system module 501 may have performed some operations thedata) from various sensors/devices are collected. In step 603, systemstate is generated (predefined output data from various sensors and/ordevices interfacing with the system module 501). In step 605, the storedsystem state becomes available to be shared with other modules. In step607, system input data is generated (predefined output data from varioussensors and devices interfacing with the system module 501, and notnecessarily the same data compared with the system state generated instep 603). In step 609, the input data stream is generated, which is thesystem input stream 505 in FIG. 5. In step 611, the output data stream(the system output stream 507 in FIG. 5) is obtained from the neuralnetwork module 507. In step 613, system output data is generated. Instep 615, the generated system output data is processed to be used incontrolling various components interfacing with the system module 501.

FIG. 7 illustrated various preferred steps performed by the neuralnetwork module 507, with step 701 as a starting point. In step 703,information is read for the neural network to be instantiated such asneural network coefficients and/or neural network structure(s). Theneural network coefficients/structure(s) can be part of the signal forMC 417, illustrated in FIG. 4, and can be stored in memory as in step705. A neural network can be initiated with the read the neural networkcoefficients/structure(s) in step 707—in the example of FIG. 5 only oneneural network is instantiated that is designated as NN DLL anddesignated as ImNN in FIG. 4. Once initiated, the NN DLL starts itsoperations—including reading input data stream (step 709). The inputdata stream (step 753) is received from the system module 501, forexample. The NN DLL then performs the function of inferencing (step 713)on the input data stream. After each inferencing performed on each setof input data stream, the NN DLL can issue a status to indicate theinference was normal or not.

When the status of the inferencing performed is checked in step 713, ifit is not a normal operation (the branch marked with “−1” for step 713),the status is checked for an error in step 715. If there is error, theerror code is written out, step 717. The error code is sent over thestatus socket 511 in step 755. If there is no error code, the status ischecked for a warning code, step 719. If there is a warning code, thewarning code is written out, step 721. The warning code is sent over tothe status socket 511 in step 755. If there is no warning, the status ischecked from information to be sent back to PISA 503. If there isinformation, the information is written out, step 725. The informationis sent over to the status socket 511 in step 755.

When the status of the inferencing performed is checked in step 713, ifit is a normal operation (the branch marked with “0” for step 713), anoperational flag is checked (step 731). The operational flag set basedon the “set action” 757 received from the PISA. If the operational flagis set to be on, the “Y” branch is taken and the NN wrapper writes theoutput of the instantiated neural network as output data stream (step710) to be read by the system 501 (step 751). If the operational flag isset to be off, the “N” branch is taken and the NN is terminated in step733, which ends the operation of the NN wrapper in step 735. Here, anexample of an error code is generated when an unrecoverable error hasoccurred and the NN DLL 517 is to be terminated. An example of a warningcode is generated when a recoverable error has occurred and a warningmessage is to be sent to the PISA module 503. An example of aninformation code is when the NN DLL 517 completes a task without anerror.

FIG. 8 illustrated various preferred steps performed by the PISA module503 with step 801 as a starting point. The box 800 depicts a set ofsystem state values that are read when the Get System State 513 isperformed. In step 803, the input system state (e.g., settingcharacteristic values) is read. The input system state includes the setof system state values (box 800) and status information from the NNwrapper in step 755. If it is determined that a new set of neuralnetwork coefficients and/or structure are needed based on the inputsystem state, then in step 805 is performed—that is, the values of theinput system state is sent (in step 807) to the coefficient DBMS (step809) which outputs the neural network coefficients and/or neural networkstructure associated with the input system state, in step 811. Aninstruction to instantiate is sent over to the neural network module (instep 813) along with the aforementioned coefficients and/or structureinformation 815. The neural network module then sends a statusinformation 817, which is received in step 819.

When the status is checked in step 821, if it is not a normal operation(the branch marked with “−1” for step 821), the status is checked for anerror in step 823. If there is error, the error code is written out,step 825. The error code is written as a system status in step 827. Ifthere is no error code, the status is checked for a warning code, step823. If there is a warning code, the warning code is written as a systemstatus in step 827. If there is no warning, the status is checked frominformation code. If there is information code, the information iswritten as a system status in step 827. Here, an example of an errorcode is generated when an unrecoverable error has occurred and the NNDLL 517 is to be terminated. An example of a warning code is generatedwhen a recoverable error has occurred and a warning message is to besent to the PISA module 503. An example of an information code is whenthe NN DLL 517 completes a task without an error.

The system status is interpreted to determine an action in step 829, andthe determined action is sent in 831 to determine if the neural networkmodule is to continue to inference—and to the NN Module. If it isdetermined to continue, the PISA module continues to execute. If it isdetermined to terminate, then the PISA module is terminated.

The pseudo-computer program provided in the section below (at the end ofthis disclosure) is an example preferred implementation of the presentinvention. In particular, PISAController performs the following steps:

a) determines, using the command line arguments, the NN implementationclass name and potentially a setting/co-efficient set databaseimplementation class name.

b) initializes a class called PISANN. Note that the implementation classname which is capable of both inheriting the PISANN class andimplementing the PISAInterface. This ensures that access to the methodsis available to the PISAController main section and ensures that thecorrect methods are completely implemented by the dependent section(s).

c) dynamically loads the primary NN and if specified, thesetting/co-efficient set database. The resulting dynamic allocation doesnot require pre-compiled knowledge of the class. Also, PISAControllerhas no need to have the insight into the inter-workings of thedynamically loaded neural network (NN).

d) determines if the PISANN has been pre-trained or trained oninstantiation. If not, the main class is exited since the incoming NNneeds to be trained prior to execution in this embodiment.

e) determines if the PISANNDatabase is available and connects to the NNdatabase. If not available, in this embodiment, a default database isprovided to the PISANNDatabase for use during operations.

f) initiate PISAInputDataHandler based on the command line arguments.All input data can be pulled directly from the PISAInputDataHandler.This class can be modified to support multiple sources (e.g. database,files, real-time feeds, sensor feeds).

g) initiate PISAOuputDataHandler based on the command line arguments.All output data can be pushed directly into the PISAOutputDataHandler.This class can be modified to support multiple sources (e.g. database,files, real-time feeds, sensor feeds).

h) initiate PISAEvent based on the command line arguments. This classcan be modified to support multiple system event types (e.g. change insettings from location-based sensors or GPS, change in settings fromtemperature sensors, etc.). The PISAEvent can be evaluated at any timeduring system processing. In this embodiment, the PISAEvent is check oneach iteration of new input data.

i) runs through input data gathered from the PISAInputDataHandlerperforming inference with the PISANN where inference results are placedinto the PISAOutputDataHandler. For each iteration, the PISAEvent ischecked for an updated status. If a PISAEvent has a changed status, newcoefficients are retrieved from the PISANNDatabase, applied to thePISANN, and processing continues with the current PISAInputDataHandlerand PISAOutputDataHandler. If no coefficients are available, thePISAController terminates. In this example embodiment, thePISAController continues to run until the data provided stops beingproduced from the PISAInputDataHander.

6. Boundary Conditions of Input and Output Spaces

FIG. 9a graphically illustrates a simplified decision-making space 301that shows both the input data space and output results from neuralnetworks. In particular, outer polygonal boundary 303 may depict theentire input sample space (e.g., the decision-making space) in twodimensions, and two smaller circles, 305 and 307, located therein maydepict validated output classes. A neural network can be constructed(e.g., instantiated having a given set of coefficients and a particularneural network structure) and trained using sample input data, eithersupervised or unsupervised, to classify input data into outputcategories. It should be noted that in some preferred embodiments,output can be generated from a node(s) of an output layer or a node(s)from a layer between an input layer and an output layer. Here,structuring a neural network includes selecting an appropriate neuralnetwork structure (e.g., convolutional neural network, CNN) andproviding an adequate number of nodes and layers of nodes for the givenclassification goal. In one example embodiment, the sample space mayrepresent two features from a set of images, the polygon 303representing the entire range in which values of those two features cantake for the sample images. Continuing with the example, one class 305can be images that have pictures of cats, and the other class 307 can beimages that have pictures of dogs. Here, a neural network can beconstructed and trained using training sample images to inference (e.g.,classify) whether an image contains a picture of a cat, a dog, both, orneither. The input space bound by 303 can be considered for the entiresample space of one particular setting. In one example, a differentsetting may have input sample space that does not overlap with the space303. Under this example, the input samples themselves may indicate adifferent setting that requires A) a new neural network executablemodule or B) a new set of coefficients and/or neural networkstructure—that is, when examining input samples, if it is outside thesample space for a given setting, this may indicate a need to query adatabase (e.g., C-DBMS 409). In one example, the input space 303 mayrepresent the entire input space for images collected in a desertsetting. In such an example, when the setting changes to a forestedregion, the images collected in the forested region may not fall withinthe input space 303.

In some embodiments of the present invention, boundary conditions in theoutput space is used in operating/controlling neural networks, ImNNs. Inconnection with FIG. 9b , a set of boundary conditions can be describedas allowing the output of a neural network to be only within a certainrange—e.g., Region A 351, although the input data can be anywhere withinthe entire sample space as depicted in FIG. 9a . Referring back to FIG.9b , if an output from a neural network constructed and trained toinference classes located within Region A, the output can be used in asubsequent processing, described below in connection with FIG. 12 below.However, if output of such a neural network is outside of Region A(e.g., Region B 353 or Region C 355 of FIG. 9b ), the output can bediscarded and not used. In another simplified depiction of FIG. 10a ,the decision-making can be illustrated as a function in aone-dimensional space. In this simplified version, the boundaryconditions are depicted as a range 1001 in which an output from a neuralnetwork is checked against.

Continuing on with the above output space description, in a simplifiedexample, a neural network 1003 structured to inference input data 1002to generate output can be instantiated. The output can be checked todetermine against the output breach boundary cognition(s). If “no,” theoutput is forwarded to the next step 1007 to be used by a machine to becontrolled (e.g., MTBC 403). If “yes,” this can be considered an eventto query the C-DBMS and/or the output is not forwarded to the next step.

The step of determining the severity of breaching the boundaryconditions can be illustrated in connection with FIG. 9b . That is, insome embodiments of the present invention, multiple sets of boundaryconditions can be imposed. In the preferred example embodiment of shownin FIG. 9b , three regions are shown. The first region is referred to asRegion A 351, in which the output from a neural network would have beenforwarded to the next step in the processing chain. Output fallingwithin Region A 351 is considered as not breaching the boundaryconditions and/or satisfying the boundary conditions. The second regionis referred to as Region B 353, in which the output could be consideredas breaching (e.g., violating or exceeding) the boundary conditions butnot harmful to the machine or anyone/anything surrounding the machine.In this case, the output can be ignored/discarded and not forwarded tothe next step in the processing step. The third region is referred to asRegion C 355, in which the output breaches the boundary conditions tosuch an extent that it could cause harm to the machine or tosomeone/something surrounding the machine. In such a case, the machinecan be shut down immediately or the user can be notified that themachine needs to be used in its manual mode. In another exampleembodiment of the present invention, if the boundary condition isseverely breached as Region C 355, a presumption can be made that themachine to be controlled is in a new setting. In this example, adatabase (e.g., the C-DBMS 409) can be queried to obtain A) a set ofcoefficients and/or a neural network structure associated with thereceived data values or B) the neural network executable module (or apointer thereto) having the structure and/or the coefficients from thedatabase that may match with the current setting characteristic values.

In an exemplary embodiment, a speech generator can be equipped withvarious features of the present invention. In particular, an exemplarypreferred speech generator can be coupled to a user identifier such as aspeech recognition system. Initially, the speech generator can be set togenerate using a default setting (e.g., the predominant language of thegeographical location in which the generator is placed) or a previoussetting (e.g., the language spoken by a previous user). During theoperation, the speech recognition system can be configured to determinethe speech of the current user. If the language used by the current useris different from the default/previous setting (that is, outside theinput sample space for the predominant language or the language of theprevious user), the speech recognition system can be further configuredto identify the language the user (e.g., English, German, French, etc.).If the user is speaking in a language different from the default/currentsetting, the C-DBMS 409 can be queried for the user's language, selectedand loaded for generating speech in the language of the user. In someembodiments, the C-DBMS 409 can be queried for each new user.

Similarly, a facial recognition system can be set to identify a user byusing a default setting (e.g., the predominant ethnic group in thegeographical location in which the facial recognition system is placed)or a previous setting (e.g., the ethnic group of a previous user).During the operation, the facial recognition system can be configured todetermine the ethnic background of the current user. If the ethnicbackground of the current user is different from the default/previoussetting (that is, outside the input sample space for the predominantethnic group or the ethnic group of the previous user), the facialrecognition system can be further configured to identify the ethnicbackground of the current user. If the current user belongs to an ethnicgroup different from the default/current setting, the C-DBMS 409 can bequeried for the current user's ethnic group, selected and loaded forfacial recognition. In some embodiments, the C-DBMS 409 can be queriedfor each new user. A neural network trained with training data set for anarrowly defined setting (e.g., ethnic groups for facial, language,and/or regional accents in speaking languages) may yield more accurateresults than a neural network trained with broad, disparate settings.

Some embodiments of the speech generator may include an implementationneural network constructed and trained to generate signals/data that canbecome human understandable phrases, sentences, and etc. when played ona loudspeaker. That is, when the ImNN of the speech generator outputsone of forbidden words, the trigger event detector recognizes it as aforbidden word (e.g., outside output boundary condition), and does notforward the output of the speech generator to a loudspeaker and/orterminates the currently running ImNN and instantiates a new ImNN havinga different set of coefficients and/or different neural networkstructure.

Although boundary conditions have been illustrated in connection withone-dimensional decision space, two-dimensional decision space, speechgeneration, facial recognition contexts, the use of boundary conditionscan be also expressed in terms of triggering events (that is atriggering event being a form of breaching a boundary condition), interms of hard operating limitations of the machine being controlled,and/or in terms of using output confidence levels of the outputs ofneural networks for given settings. In addition to expressing boundaryconditions as triggering events, boundary conditions can also be viewedas expressions of the competence range in which a given neural networkis constructed and trained to operate per a particular setting. Also, adifferent way to define boundary conditions can be in term of the outputconfidence level in connection with a given output from a neuralnetwork. In one example preferred embodiments, if the output confidencelevel of an output of a neural network falls below a predetermined level(e.g., below 60%), such an output can be discarded and/or A) a newneural network executable module or B) a new set of coefficients and/orstructure can be searched and selected. In another example preferredembodiments, if the output confidence levels of two or more outputs of aneural network are similar (e.g., the same or only different marginallyas in less than 5%), such a set of outputs can be discarded and/or A) anew neural network executable module or B) a new set of coefficientsand/or structure can be searched and selected.

7. Triggering Event Detector

As shown in FIG. 11, in some preferred embodiments of the presentinvention, a triggering event detector (TED) 1131 is included. In theseembodiments, an MTBC 1103, an SCDC 1107, an MC 1105, an ImNN 1121, and aC-DMBS 1109 have features/functions/capabilities of the MTBC 403, theSCDC 407, the MC 405, the ImNN 421, and the C-DMBS 409, respectively, asdescribed above in connection with FIG. 4. Also coupling mechanisms canbe included such as: input data 1119 (two paths shown in FIG. 11),control data 1115 (two shown in FIG. 11), status data 1113, a signal forMC 1117 have features/functions/capabilities input data 419, controldata 415, status data 413, a signal for MC 417, respectively, asdescribed above in connection with FIG. 4. In addition, the MTBC 1103,the SCDC 1107, the MC 1105, the ImNN 1121, and the C-DMBS 1109 (and thecoupling mechanism) are configured to work with the TED 1131 asdescribed below.

The TED 1131 receives the input data from the MTBC 1103 and control datafrom the MC 1105. In various embodiments of the present invention, theinput data and control data sent to TED 1131 can be synchronized. Thatis, the input data to the MC 1105 that caused certain control data to begenerated by the MC 1105 after a process delay can be sent to the TED1131 at the same time (or associated with each other) to be processed bythe TED 1131. A triggering event can relate to input sample(s) beingdetected to be outside the input sample space for a particular settingand/or output data breaching the boundary conditions (either for aparticular setting or a universal breach). In FIG. 11, if a triggeringevent is detected, a signal 1133 send a notice to the MTBC 1101 and/orSCDC 1107. The notice can be an instruction to discard the output(synchronized with the input that caused the triggering event), or thenotice can be an instruction to lower the NN confidence level that isinstantiated on the ImNN 1121 (e.g., the SCDC 1107 notifies the CDMS1109 to store the lowered confidence level for the corresponding A)neural network executable module or B) set of coefficients and/or itsstructure. In another preferred embodiment, upon receiving such asignal, the MTBC 1103 collects the setting characteristic values andsends them to the SCDC 1107, which in turn queries the C-DBMS 1109. Inanother preferred embodiment, upon receiving such a signal from the TED1131, the SCDC 1107 uses the setting characteristic values to query theC-DBMS 1109.

As such, a trigger event detector is an example of mechanism(s) indetecting/sensing boundary conditions. In some embodiments, thetriggering event detector is implemented using a neural network that isconstructed and trained to detect one or more of triggering events or atype of events. In other embodiments of the present invention, a set oflogical steps in algorithms/heuristics can be used to detect one or moretriggering events or a type of events. In some preferred embodiments,similar to the input sample space, the output space can also be definedby range of values. In these embodiments, logic to detecting atriggering event determines if the control data (i.e., output of the MC1105) is outside the predefined output space. In yet some embodiments,the TED 1131 can have a neural network and a set of logical steps.

TABLE 3 Input Entry Ambient Sample Boundary Coefficient # Time LocationWeather Temp space Conditions . . . Structure Array 1 Day time 1^(st)Ranges of Sunny Above Input Output ranges feedforward 1^(st) set [. . .]range Latitudes freezing ranges AND/OR Longitudes structure &coefficient array 2 Day time 2^(nd) Ranges of Cloudy Above Input Outputranges feedforward 2^(nd) set [. . .] range Lats + Longs freezing rangesAND/OR structure & coefficient array 3 Night 3^(rd) Ranges of Rain AboveInput Output ranges Back 3^(rd) set [. . .] time Lats + Longs freezingranges AND/OR propagation structure & coefficient array . . . n EveningN^(th) Ranges of Sunny Freezing Input Output ranges Restricted N^(th)set [. . .] twilight Lats + Longs ranges AND/OR Boltzmann structure &coefficient array

As illustrated in Table 3 above, in some preferred embodiments, settingcharacteristic value ranges can also be associated with input samplespace (e.g., defined by the ranges of input sample values) and outputboundary conditions. In particular, an input space ranges is defined fora given neural network of Coefficients Array and Structure. The inputranges are used as described in connection with FIG. 11 (and notnecessarily the output boundary conditions in that figure). Variouspreferred embodiments described below in connection with FIG. 12, theinput boundary conditions and output boundary conditions may be used.

In particular, the preferred embodiments in connection with FIG. 12 mayinclude an MTBC 1203, an SCDC 1207, an MC 1205, an ImNN 1221, and aC-DMBS 1209 have features/functions/capabilities of the MTBC 1103, theSCDC 1107, the MC 1105, the ImNN 1121, and the C-DMBS 1109,respectively, as described above in connection with FIG. 12. Alsocoupling mechanisms can be included such as: input data 1219 (two pathsshown in FIG. 12), control data 1215 (two shown in FIG. 12), status data1213, a signal for MC 1217 have features/functions/capabilities inputdata 419, control data 415, status data 413, a signal for MC 417,respectively, as described above in connection with FIG. 4. In addition,the MTBC 1103, the SCDC 1107, the MC 1105, the ImNN 1121, and the C-DMBS1109 (and the coupling mechanism) are configured to work with the TED1131 as described below. In addition, the MTBC 1203, the SCDC 1207, theMC 1205, the ImNN 1221, and the C-DMBS 1209 (and the coupling mechanism)are configured to work with the TED Data 1235 and data on TED Output1233 as described below.

While A) the neural network executable module or B) the coefficients andstructure are used by the SCDC 1207 to instantiate the ImNN 1221 in theMC 1205 for a particular set of setting characteristic value ranges, thecorresponding input space ranges and output boundary conditions can beloaded on to the TED 1231 (via the TED Data lines 1235 shown in FIG.12). In the embodiments that use a neural network, the coefficient setand the neural network structure to be used in the TED 1231 are alsosent to the TED 1231. Upon receiving the data from the SCDC 1207, TED1231 can implement specific configurations. Preferred exemplaryembodiments contemplate, triggering event as:

Incorrect/abnormal type: Output(s) being out of operatingbounds/limitations—examples:

-   -   In a refrigerator controller, the controller attempts to raise        the temperature of fridge above the recommended operational        temperature    -   In an oven the controller attempts to raise the temperature        above a recommended operational temperature    -   In an oven and/or stove, turn on the oven and/or stove during a        time or condition when it has been designated for non-use (for        example, between lam and 6 am, or when no one is at home, e.g.,        when a sensor determines that no one is home)    -   In a speech generator, curse words or other inappropriate words        are generated    -   In a controller for a driverless car, the controller issues a        lane change command after receiving a proximity warning    -   In an image generator, inappropriate images are generated    -   In an image display apparatus, inappropriate images are        displayed    -   In a controller for a robot, a command to harm a human being is        created    -   In a printer controller, a counterfeit currency or counterfeit        signature is generated Security breach type:        -   In a controller for a refrigerator (or another system for            example a video camera system) repeated information requests            to particular websites        -   An authorized access to personal information        -   An attempt to adjust or replace or otherwise modify the            controller        -   An attempt to cause a denial of service attack on a remote            device        -   While running two virtual machines on an autonomous machine            with substantially identical ImNNs on each virtual machine,            one set of ImNNs start generating output data deviating from            the output of the other set of ImNNs

Unauthorized usage level type: In an automated personal assistantembodiment, when a user is assigned to a G-rated search results only,the personal assistant generates results that are in R-rated category.

Going back to FIG. 12, when a triggering event is detected, the TED 1231sends a signal over TED Output 1233 to the MTBC 1203 and/or the SCDC1207. This signal indicates that a triggering event is detected and anaction is required to be taken. In one preferred embodiment, uponreceiving such a signal, the MTBC 1203 collects the settingcharacteristic values and sends them to the SCDC 1207, which in turnqueries the C-DBMS 1209. In another preferred embodiment, upon receivingsuch a signal from the TED 1231, the SCDC 1207 uses the settingcharacteristic values to query the C-DBMS 1209. In other embodiments, ifa triggering event is detected, TED Output 1233 send a notice to theMTBC1201 and/or SCDC 1207. The notice can be an instruction to discardthe output (synchronized with the input that caused the triggeringevent), or the notice can be an instruction to lower the NN confidencelevel that is instantiated on the ImNN 1221 (e.g., the SCDC 1207notifies the CDMS 1209 to store the lowered confidence level for thecorresponding A) neural network executable module OR B) the coefficientsand/or its structure.

In some preferred embodiments, when such a triggering event signal isreceived the SCDC 1207 keeps the information about the entry of theC-DBMS 1209 that caused the triggering event. SCDC 1207 then updatesthat entry in the C-DBMS 1209. The updates can include lowering the NNconfidence level of the entry (if the entry has an NN confidence levelcolumn as described above in connection with the C-DBMS 1209), removethe entry, and/or mark it for evaluation manually off-line.

Various components/devices of the SCDC and MC (described above inconnection with FIGS. 4, 11 and 12) can be implemented on a chip, achip-set, ASIC, AI server (e.g., DGX-1 by Nvidia), and/or firmware. Thisis, for example, to prevent a potential security breach (e.g., a virusattack) and/or to provide a baseline from which to re-boot. In otherwords, in some exemplary embodiments, the logic and/or neural network(s)located in the SCDC is not modifiable or adjustable by or at theautonomous machine, but only re-deployable, modifiable, and/oradjustable by an authorized system of the original manufacturer of theautonomous machine. It should be noted in some embodiments, such a SCDCcan run on one thread (e.g., on one virtual machine), while ImNN(s) canrun on another thread (e.g., another virtual machine) on ageneral-purpose processor or a graphical accelerator/processor (e.g.,implemented on solid-state devices such as a chip, a chip-set, ASIC).

In various embodiments of the present invention, the SCDC and theImNN(s) can be co-located on a device (e.g., a general-purpose computer,a controller chassis, an ASIC, chipset, etc.). Although theimplementation of some of the preferred embodiments are described interms of solid-state devices (e.g., semiconductor chips), portions ofsome preferred embodiments being implemented on an optical computerdevice or quantum computing device is also contemplated. It should benoted that the SCDC can also be implemented on an AI server (forexample, DGX-1 by Nvidia), and/or firmware deployed on a servercomputer, a processor specifically adapted to allow efficient running ofneural networks also referred to as neural network processors. TheImNN(s) can also run on a processor (e.g., a general-purpose processor,or graphical accelerator/processor, digital processor or processorsspecifically adapted to allow efficient running of neural networks alsoreferred to as neural network processors). As noted above, the SCDC canbe implemented (e.g., on a server) remotely located from the ImNN(s)(e.g., on a client(s)).

In some embodiments of the present invention, the structure(s) of theImNN(s) are not modifiable once deployed on an automated machine, forsecurity reasons and/or for efficiency. In such an embodiment, only thecoefficients for the nodes are stored in the C-DMBS and would be used bythe SCDC to modify the ImNN(s). In other words, the information relatingto the structures (e.g., type of neural network, number of nodes andlayers, and nodal connection information) is not needed to be stored inthe C-DMBS for these embodiments, since the neural network structure ofthe ImNN(s) is not modifiable. The structures of the ImNN(s) for theseembodiments can be implemented on fixed hardware/firmware that cannot bechanged once deployed.

Any module, routine or any apparatus configured to perform the functionsrecited by means described herein or may be performed by any suitablemeans capable of performing the corresponding functions. The means mayinclude various hardware and/or software component(s) and/or module(s),including, but not limited to, a circuit, an application specificintegrated circuit (ASIC), or processor. Further, it should beappreciated that modules and/or other appropriate means for performingthe methods and techniques described herein can be downloaded and/orotherwise obtained by a user terminal and/or base station as applicable.For example, such a device can be coupled to a server to facilitate thetransfer of means for performing the methods described herein.Alternatively, various methods described herein can be provided viastorage means (e.g., RAM, ROM, a physical storage medium such as acompact disc (CD) or floppy disk, etc.), such that a user terminaland/or base station can obtain the various methods upon coupling orproviding the storage means to the device. Moreover, any other suitabletechnique for providing the methods and techniques described herein to adevice can be utilized.

As used herein, the term “determining” encompasses a wide variety ofactions. For example, “determining” may include calculating, computing,processing, deriving, investigating, looking up (e.g., looking up in atable, a database or another data structure), ascertaining and the like.Further, “determining” may include receiving (e.g., receivinginformation), accessing (e.g., accessing data in a memory) and the like.In addition, “determining” may include resolving, selecting, choosing,establishing and the like.

Also, as used herein, phrases neural network executable modules,executable modules of neural network, executable neural network modulesmean the same.

The various illustrative logical blocks, modules, processors andcircuits described in connection with this disclosure may be implementedor performed with a general purpose processor, a digital signalprocessor (DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), afield programmable gate array signal (FPGA) or other programmable logicdevice (PLD), discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardwarecomponents or any combination thereof designed to perform the functionsdescribed herein. A general-purpose processor may be a microprocessor,but in the alternative, the processor may be any commercially availableprocessor, controller, microcontroller or state machine. A processor mayalso be implemented as a combination of computing devices, e.g., acombination of a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality ofmicroprocessors, one or more microprocessors in conjunction with a DSPcore, or any other such configuration.

As one of skill in the art will appreciate, the steps of a method oralgorithm described in connection with the present disclosure may beembodied directly in hardware, in a software module executed by aprocessor, or in a combination of the two. A software module may residein any form of storage medium that is known in the art, including memorythat may be part of a microprocessor or in communication with amicroprocessor. Some examples of storage media that may be used include,but are not limited to, random access memory (RAM), read only memory(ROM), flash memory, erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), registers,a hard disk, a removable disk including removable optical media, and soforth. A software module may comprise a single instruction, or manyinstructions, and may be distributed over several different codesegments, among different programs, and across multiple storage media. Astorage medium may be coupled to a processor such that the processor canread information from, and write information to, the storage medium. Inthe alternative, the storage medium may be integral to the processor.

The methods disclosed herein may include one or more steps or actionsfor achieving a described method. The method steps and/or actions may beinterchanged with one another without departing from the scope of theinvention. In other words, unless a specific order of steps or actionsis specified, the order and/or use of specific steps and/or actions maybe modified without departing from the scope of the disclosure. Thefunctions described may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware,or any combination thereof. If implemented in hardware, an examplehardware configuration may comprise a processing system in a device. Theprocessing system may be implemented with a bus architecture. The busmay include any number of interconnecting buses and bridges depending onthe specific application of the processing system and the overall designconstraints. The bus may link together various circuits including aprocessor, machine-readable media, and a bus interface. The businterface may be used to connect a network adapter, among other things,to the processing system via the bus. The network adapter may be used toimplement signal processing functions. For certain aspects, a userinterface (e.g., keypad, display, mouse, joystick, etc.) may also beconnected to the bus. The bus may also link various other circuits suchas timing sources, peripherals, voltage regulators, power managementcircuits, and the like, which are well known in the art, and therefore,will not be described any further.

The processor (e.g., image processor) may be responsible for managingthe bus and general processing, including the execution of softwarestored on the machine-readable media. The processor may be implementedwith one or more general-purpose and/or special-purpose processors.Examples include microprocessors, microcontrollers, DSP processors, andother circuitry that can execute software. Software shall be construedbroadly to mean instructions, data, or any combination thereof, whetherreferred to as software, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardwaredescription language, or otherwise. Machine-readable media may include,by way of example, random access memory (RAM), flash memory, read onlymemory (ROM), programmable read-only memory (PROM), erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EEPROM), registers, magnetic disks,optical disks, hard drives, or any other suitable storage medium, or anycombination thereof. The machine-readable media may be embodied in acomputer-program product. The computer-program product may comprisepackaging materials.

In a hardware implementation, the machine-readable media may be part ofthe processing system separate from the processor. However, as thoseskilled in the art will readily appreciate, the machine-readable media,or any portion thereof, may be external to the processing system. By wayof example, the machine-readable media may include a transmission line,a carrier wave modulated by data, and/or a computer product separatefrom the device, all which may be accessed by the processor through thebus interface. Alternatively, or in addition, the machine-readablemedia, or any portion thereof, may be integrated into the processor,such as the case may be with cache and/or general register files.Although the various components discussed may be described as having aspecific location, such as a local component, they may also beconfigured in various ways, such as certain components being configuredas part of a distributed computing system.

In some embodiments, the processing system may be configured as ageneral-purpose processing system with one or more microprocessorsproviding the processor functionality and external memory providing atleast a portion of the machine-readable media, all linked together withother supporting circuitry through an external bus architecture. In someembodiments, the processing system may be implemented with anapplication specific integrated circuit (ASIC) with the processor, thebus interface, the user interface, supporting circuitry, and at least aportion of the machine-readable media integrated into a single chip, orwith one or more field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), programmablelogic devices (PLDs), controllers, state machines, gated logic, discretehardware components, or any other suitable circuitry, or any combinationof circuits that can perform the various functionality describedthroughout this disclosure. In some embodiments, the processing systemmay comprise one or more neuromorphic processors for implementing theneuron models and models of neural systems described herein. As anotheralternative, the processing system may be implemented with anapplication specific integrated circuit (ASIC) with the processor, thebus interface, the user interface, supporting circuitry, and at least aportion of the machine-readable media integrated into a single chip, orwith one or more field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), programmablelogic devices (PLDs), controllers, state machines, gated logic, discretehardware components, or any other suitable circuitry, or any combinationof circuits that can perform the various functionality describedthroughout this disclosure. Those skilled in the art will recognize howbest to implement the described functionality for the processing systemdepending on the particular application and the overall designconstraints imposed on the overall system.

The machine-readable media may comprise a number of software modules.The software modules include instructions that, when executed by theprocessor, cause the processing system to perform various functions. Thesoftware modules may include a transmission module and a receivingmodule. Each software module may reside in a single storage device or bedistributed across multiple storage devices. By way of example, asoftware module may be loaded into RAM from another storage medium whena triggering event occurs. During execution of the software module, theprocessor may load some of the instructions into cache to increaseaccess speed. When referring to the functionality of a software modulebelow, it will be understood that such functionality is implemented bythe processor when executing instructions from that software module.

Some embodiments may comprise a computer program product for performingthe operations presented herein. For example, such a computer programproduct may comprise a computer-readable medium having instructionsstored (and/or encoded) thereon, the instructions being executable byone or more processors to perform the operations described herein. Ifimplemented in software, functions may be stored or transmitted over asone or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium.Computer-readable media include both computer storage media andcommunication media including any medium that facilitates transfer of acomputer program from one place to another. A storage medium may be anyavailable medium that can be accessed by a computer. Thus, in someembodiments a computer-readable media may comprise non-transitorycomputer-readable media (e.g., tangible media). Combinations of theabove should also be included within the scope of computer-readablemedia.

EXAMPLE EMBODIMENTS

A first embodiment, Embodiment A, includes a method of controlling amachine, the method comprising storing at least two sets of neuralnetwork coefficients, each being different from the others; associatingeach of the at least two sets of neural network coefficients with one ormore characteristics of a setting; receiving first data from one or moreinput devices of the machine; selecting one from the at least two setsof neural network coefficients based on the first data and the one ormore characteristics of the setting; instantiating a neural network withthe selected one from the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients; conducting a nodal operation at each node of theinstantiated neural network; and controlling an aspect of the machineusing an output from the instantiated neural network.

Embodiment B includes the method of Embodiment A, wherein said each ofthe one or more characteristics of a setting is defined with a range ofvalues. Embodiment C includes the method of any one of Embodiments A orB, further comprising storing information relating to a neural networkstructure associated each of the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients. Embodiment D includes the method Embodiments C, whereineach the neural network structure is one of a convolutional neuralnetwork, a feed forward neural network, a neural Turing machine,Hopfield neural network, or a Boltzmann machine neural network.Embodiment E includes the method of any one of Embodiments A-D, whereinthe setting is one of a temperate urban region, a desert rural region, aforested mountain region, and a coastal city. Embodiment F includes themethod of any one of Embodiments A-E, wherein selecting one from the atleast two sets of neural network coefficients further comprises matchingthe first data with the one or more characteristics of settings.Embodiment G includes the method of Embodiment F, wherein said matchingfurther comprises: comparing the first data with the one or morecharacteristics of settings, wherein each of the one or morecharacteristics of settings is defined with a range of values; andidentifying the selected one of the one or more characteristics ofsettings that the first data fall within the range of values. EmbodimentH includes the method of Embodiment G, wherein the neural networkcoefficients matched with the selected one are generated by usingtraining data set collected within the corresponding particular setting.

Embodiment I includes the method of any one Embodiments A-H, wherein thefirst data includes data from a Global Positioning System. Embodiment Jincludes the method of any one of embodiments A-I, wherein informationrelating to the at least two sets of neural network coefficients isstored in a standardized format to allow access by electronic devicesmanufactured by different manufacturers. Embodiment K includes themethod of any one of Embodiments A-J, further comprising: storing a setof one or more input range values associated each of the at least twosets of neural network coefficients; comparing the first data with theone or more input range values associated with the selected one from theat least two sets of neural network coefficients; and selecting a newset among the at least two sets of neural network coefficients if thefirst data is outside the input range values. Embodiment L includes themethod of any one of Embodiments A-K, further comprising: storing a setof one or more output range values associated each of the at least twosets of neural network coefficients; comparing the output with the oneor more output range values associated with the selected one from the atleast two sets of neural network coefficients; and selecting a new setamong the at least two sets of neural network coefficients if the outputis outside the output range values.

Another innovation, Embodiment M includes an apparatus for controlling amachine, comprising a database management system storing at least twosets of neural network coefficients being different from each other, atleast one setting having one or more characteristics, and each of the atleast two sets of neural network coefficients being associated with theat least one setting having one or more characteristics; and acontrolling device that is coupled to receive first data from one ormore input devices of the machine, arranged to select one from the atleast two sets of neural network coefficients based on the first dataand at one least one setting having one or more characteristics, andarranged to instantiate a neural network with the selected one from theat least two sets of neural network coefficients and to conduct a nodaloperation at each node of the instantiated neural network, wherein theneural network is configured to generate an output being used to controlan aspect of the machine.

Embodiment N includes the apparatus of Embodiment M, wherein each ofsaid at least one setting having one or more characteristics is definedwith a range of values. Embodiment O includes the apparatus of eitherEmbodiment M or N, wherein the database management system further storesinformation relating to a neural network structure associated each ofthe at least two sets of neural network coefficients. Embodiment Pincludes the apparatus of Embodiment O, wherein the neural networkstructure is one of a convolutional neural network, a feed forwardneural network, a neural Turing machine, Hopfield neural network, or aBoltzmann machine neural network. Embodiment Q includes the apparatus ofany one of Embodiments M-P, wherein the at least one setting is one ofenvironment, condition, or situation in which the machine operates. Forvarious embodiments, the at least one setting can includes setting ortwo or more of environment, condition, or situation in which the machineoperates. Embodiment R includes the apparatus of any one of EmbodimentsM-Q, wherein the database management system is configured to match thefirst data with one of at least one setting having one or morecharacteristics. Embodiment S includes the apparatus of Embodiment R,wherein the database management system is configured to compare thefirst data with the at least one setting having one or morecharacteristics defined with a range of values and to identify theselected one of the at least one set among one or more ranges of valuesthat has the first data fall within its ranges of values. Embodiment Tincludes the apparatus of any one of Embodiments M-S, wherein themachine controlled is one of a robot, a vehicle, or a drone. EmbodimentU includes the apparatus of any one of Embodiments M-T, wherein theinformation relating to the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients is stored in a standardized format to allow access byelectronic devices manufactured by different manufacturers. Embodiment Vincludes the apparatus of any one of Embodiments M-U, wherein thedatabase management system further stores a set of one or more inputrange values associated each of the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients and the instantiated neural network with the selected onefrom the at least two sets of neural network coefficients furtherconfigured to receive first data, and wherein the database managementsystem further includes a trigger event detector arranged to compare thefirst data with the one or more input range values associated with theselected one from the at least two sets of neural network coefficientsand to send a signal to the controlling device to select a new set amongthe at least two sets of neural network coefficients if the first datais outside the input range values. Embodiment W includes the apparatusof any one of Embodiments M-U, wherein the database management systemfurther stores a set of one or more output range values associated eachof the at least two sets of neural network coefficients, and furtherincludes a trigger event detector arranged to compare the output withthe one or more output range values associated with the selected onefrom the at least two sets of neural network coefficients and to send asignal to the controlling device to select a new set among the at leasttwo sets of neural network coefficients if the output is outside theoutput range values.

Another innovation, Embodiment X includes an apparatus for controlling amachine, comprising a database management system stored with at leasttwo sets of neural network coefficients being different from each other,at least one setting having one or more characteristics of a setting,and each of the at least two sets of neural network coefficients beingassociated with the at least one setting having one or morecharacteristics; and means for, coupled to receive first data from oneor more input devices of the machine, selecting one from the at leasttwo sets of neural network coefficients based on the first data and atone least one setting having one or more characteristics, instantiatinga neural network with the selected one from the at least two sets ofneural network coefficients and conducting an nodal operation at eachnode of the instantiated neural network, wherein the neural network isconfigured to generate an output being used to control an aspect of themachine. Embodiment Y includes the apparatus of Embodiment X, whereineach of at least one setting having one or more characteristics isdefined with a range of values. Embodiment Z includes the apparatus ofany of Embodiments X or Y, wherein the database management system isconfigured to further stores information relating to a neural networkstructure associated each of the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients. Embodiment AA includes the apparatus of any one ofEmbodiments X-Z, wherein the neural network structure is one of aconvolutional neural network, a feed forward neural network, a neuralTuring machine, Hopfield neural network, or a Boltzmann machine neuralnetwork. Embodiment AB includes the apparatus of any one of EmbodimentsX-AA, wherein the database management system is further configured tomatch the first data with one of at least one setting having one or morecharacteristics. Embodiment AC includes the Embodiment of AB, whereinthe database management system is configured to compare the first datawith the at least one setting having one or more characteristics definedwith a range of values and to identify the selected one of the at leastone set among one or more ranges of values that has the first data fallwithin its range of values.

Example of Pseudo-Computer Program

The pseudo-computer program provided in the section below (at the end ofthis disclosure) is an example preferred implementation of the presentinvention. In particular, PISAController performs the following steps:

/* Main driver program for TOPController */ importjava.lang.reflect.Constructor; import java.lang.reflect.Method; importjava.util.*; public class PISAController {  public static voidmain(String[ ] args) { // Initialize the input NN, NN database StringinputNNClassName = null; String inputNNDatabaseName = null; booleanhasDatabase = false; // Check the main arguments if (args.length > 2) {inputNNClassName = new String(args[1]); inputNNDatabaseName = newString(args[2]); hasDatabase = true; } else if (args.length > 1) {inputNNClassName = new String(args[1]); inputNNDatabaseName = newString(“DDB.class”); } else { System.out.println(″PISA requires classname.″); System.exit(−1); } try { // Initialize primary PISA NNs PISANNpisaNN = null; PISANNDatabase databaseNN = null; // Generate the PISA NNobject from the ClassLoader PISAClassLoader pisaCL = newPISAClassLoader( ); pisaNN = pisaCL.invoke(inputNNClassName, ″getNN″);// Get default trained NN if (!(pisaNN.getNNtrained( ))) {System.out.println(″PISA requires a trained network.″); System.exit(−1);} // If PISAController configuration has a database, // create aninstance of database and connect. // Generate PISANNDatabase object fromthe ClassLoader PISAClassLoader pisaCL = new PISAClassLoader( );databaseNN = pisaCL.invoke(inputNNDatabaseName, ″getDB″); // Connect tothe database using the default class name // which contains the name ofthe database connection. try { databaseNN.connectDB( ); } catch(Exception e) { e.printStackTrace( ); System.exit(−1); } // InitializePISA input data PISAInputDataHandler inputData = newPISAInputDataHandler(args[0]); // Check on the input data class if(inputData == null) { System.out.println(″PISA requires an input datastream.″); System.exit(−1); } // Check on size of input data stream. if(inputData.getInputSize( ) <= 0) { System.out.println(″PISA requires aninput data stream.″); System.exit(−1); } double[ ] inputs = newdouble[inputData.getInputSize( )]; // Initialize PISA output dataPISAOutputDataHandler ouputData = new PISAOuputDataHandler(args[0]); //Check on the output data class if (ouputData == null) {System.out.println(″PISA requires an output data stream.″);System.exit(−1); } // Check on size of input data stream. if(outputData.getOutputSize( ) <= 0) { System.out.println(″PISA requiresan output data stream.″); System.exit(−1); } double[ ] outputs = newdouble[ouputData.getOuputSize( )]; int cycleIndex = 0; // InitializePISA settings change events PISAEvent pisaEvent = new PISAEvent(args[0]); // Initialize output data double[ ] outputNN = null; //Continually loop over input data // Output results to the outputDatahandler. // until end of input data or // until pisaEvent has changed //if pisaEvent, then // get new coefficients // if new coefficientspossible // update the NN // else // terminate NN and exit // continuewhile (cycleIndex >= 0) { // Get input data inputs =inputData.getInput(cycleIndex); try { // Perform inference using pisaNNoutputs = pisaNN.inferenceNN(inputs); // Perform setting check if(pisaEvent.hasChanged( )) {  // Pull new coefficients based on the newevent  // apply the coefficients to the NN  double[ ] coefficients;  try{  coefficients = databaseNN.getCoefficients( pisaEvent.getEvent( ),pisaEvent.getEventDetails( ));  }  catch (Exception e) { //Nocoefficients found for event and // settings change e.printStackTrace(); System.exit(−1);  }  try {  pisaNN.setCoefficients(coefficients);  } catch (Exception e) { // Coefficients are not a match for NN // Orerror applying coefficients to the NN e.printStackTrace( );System.exit(−1);  }  } else {  outputData.setOuput(outputNN);  } } catch(Exception e) { e.printStackTrace( ); } cycleIndex++; if (cycleIndex >inputData.getCycleMax( )) { cycleIndex = 0; } }  } } // Catch allerrors. catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace( ); System.exit(−1); } } }

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of controlling a machine, the methodcomprising: storing at least two sets of neural network coefficients,each being different from the others; associating each of the at leasttwo sets of neural network coefficients with one or more characteristicsof a setting; receiving first data from one or more input devices of themachine; selecting one from the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients based on the first data and the one or more characteristicsof the setting; instantiating a neural network with the selected onefrom the at least two sets of neural network coefficients; conducting anodal operation at each node of the instantiated neural network; andcontrolling an aspect of the machine using an output from theinstantiated neural network.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein said eachof the one or more characteristics of a setting is defined with a rangeof values.
 3. The method of claim 2, further comprising storinginformation relating to a neural network structure associated each ofthe at least two sets of neural network coefficients.
 4. The method ofclaim 3, wherein the neural network structure is one of a convolutionalneural network, a feed forward neural network, a neural Turing machine,Hopfield neural network, or a Boltzmann machine neural network.
 5. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the setting is one of a temperate urbanregion, a desert rural region, a forested mountain region, and a coastalcity.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting one from the at leasttwo sets of neural network coefficients further comprises matching thefirst data with the one or more characteristics of settings.
 7. Themethod of claim 6, wherein said matching further comprises: comparingthe first data with the one or more characteristics of settings, whereineach of the one or more characteristics of settings is defined with arange of values; and identifying the selected one of the one or morecharacteristics of settings that the first data fall within the range ofvalues.
 8. The method of claim 6, wherein the neural networkcoefficients matched with the selected one are generated by usingtraining data set collected within the corresponding particular setting.9. The method of claim 1, wherein the first data includes data from aGlobal Positioning System.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein theinformation relating to the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients is stored in a standardized format to allow access byelectronic devices manufactured by different manufacturers.
 11. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: storing a set of one or moreinput range values associated each of the at least two sets of neuralnetwork coefficients; comparing the first data with the one or moreinput range values associated with the selected one from the at leasttwo sets of neural network coefficients; and selecting a new set amongthe at least two sets of neural network coefficients if the first datais outside the input range values.
 12. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: storing a set of one or more output range values associatedeach of the at least two sets of neural network coefficients; comparingthe output with the one or more output range values associated with theselected one from the at least two sets of neural network coefficients;and selecting a new set among the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients if the output is outside the output range values.
 13. Anapparatus for controlling a machine, comprising: a database managementsystem storing at least two sets of neural network coefficients beingdifferent from each other, at least one setting having one or morecharacteristics, and each of the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients being associated with the at least one setting having oneor more characteristics; and a controlling device that is coupled toreceive first data from one or more input devices of the machine,arranged to select one from the at least two sets of neural networkcoefficients based on the first data and at one least one setting havingone or more characteristics, and arranged to instantiate a neuralnetwork with the selected one from the at least two sets of neuralnetwork coefficients and to conduct a nodal operation at each node ofthe instantiated neural network, wherein the neural network isconfigured to generate an output being used to control an aspect of themachine.
 14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein each of said at leastone setting having one or more characteristics is defined with a rangeof values.
 15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the databasemanagement system further stores information relating to a neuralnetwork structure associated each of the at least two sets of neuralnetwork coefficients.
 16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the neuralnetwork structure is one of a convolutional neural network, a feedforward neural network, a neural Turing machine, Hopfield neuralnetwork, or a Boltzmann machine neural network.
 17. The apparatus ofclaim 13, wherein the setting is one of environment, condition, andsituation in which the machine operates.
 18. The apparatus of claim 13,the database management system is configured to match the first datawith one of at least one setting having one or more characteristics. 19.The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the database management system isconfigured to compare the first data with the at least one settinghaving one or more characteristics defined with a range of values and toidentify the selected one of the at least one set among one or moreranges of values that has the first data fall within its ranges ofvalues.
 20. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the machine controlled isone of a robot, a vehicle, or a drone.
 21. The apparatus of claim 13,wherein the information relating to the at least two sets of neuralnetwork coefficients is stored in a standardized format to allow accessby electronic devices manufactured by different manufacturers.
 22. Theapparatus of claim 13, wherein the database management system furtherstores a set of one or more input range values associated each of the atleast two sets of neural network coefficients and the instantiatedneural network with the selected one from the at least two sets ofneural network coefficients further configured to receive first data,and wherein the database management system further includes a triggerevent detector arranged to compare the first data with the one or moreinput range values associated with the selected one from the at leasttwo sets of neural network coefficients and to send a signal to thecontrolling device to select a new set among the at least two sets ofneural network coefficients if the first data is outside the input rangevalues.
 23. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the database managementsystem further stores a set of one or more output range valuesassociated each of the at least two sets of neural network coefficients,and further includes a trigger event detector arranged to compare theoutput with the one or more output range values associated with theselected one from the at least two sets of neural network coefficientsand to send a signal to the controlling device to select a new set amongthe at least two sets of neural network coefficients if the output isoutside the output range values.
 24. An apparatus for controlling amachine, comprising: a database management system stored with at leasttwo sets of neural network coefficients being different from each other,at least one setting having one or more characteristics of a setting,and each of the at least two sets of neural network coefficients beingassociated with the at least one setting having one or morecharacteristics; and means for, coupled to receive first data from oneor more input devices of the machine, selecting one from the at leasttwo sets of neural network coefficients based on the first data and atone least one setting having one or more characteristics, instantiatinga neural network with the selected one from the at least two sets ofneural network coefficients and conducting an nodal operation at eachnode of the instantiated neural network, wherein the neural network isconfigured to generate an output being used to control an aspect of themachine.
 25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein each of at least onesetting having one or more characteristics is defined with a range ofvalues.
 26. The apparatus of claim 24, the database management systemfurther stores information relating to a neural network structureassociated each of the at least two sets of neural network coefficients.27. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the neural network structure isone of a convolutional neural network, a feed forward neural network, aneural Turing machine, Hopfield neural network, or a Boltzmann machineneural network.
 28. The apparatus of claim 24, the database managementsystem is configured to match the first data with one of at least onesetting having one or more characteristics.
 29. The apparatus of claim28, the database management system is configured to compare the firstdata with the at least one setting having one or more characteristicsdefined with a range of values and to identify the selected one of theat least one set among one or more ranges of values that has the firstdata fall within its range of values.